The Indian equity benchmarks gained for sixth straight session on Monday on the back of buying interest in Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Infosys and Mahindra & Mahindra. In the last six sessions, Sensex rose as much as 2,232 points or 3.87 per cent and Nifty 50 index climbed 627 points.
On Monday, the Sensex rose 14 points to close at 59,846 and Nifty 50 index advanced 25 points to 17,624.
"Strong pre-quarterly business updates from Nifty heavyweights continued to support markets. Nifty opened higher and continued its positive momentum throughout the day. The index however, erased most of the gains in the last hour to close marginally up at 17,624 levels. Sectorally it was mixed bag with Realty being top gainer – up 4 per cent. Record Pre-sales numbers by real estate companies along with pause in interest rate hike by RBI and further improvement in demand could keep real estate in momentum going forward as well. The government recently approved Kirit Parikh recommendation for the pricing of natural gas, which led to sharp reduction in the prices of CNG and PNG," said Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
"This is big positive for Oil & Gas sector and we expect the sector to remain in limelight in the near term. The undertone of the market continues to remain positive on back of expectation of healthy Q4 earning season. Investors would keep a watch on several economic data including US, China & India Inflation, UK GDP and FOMC meeting minutes. IT companies will be in focus ahead of TCS & Infosys results on 12th & 13th April respectively," Khemka added.
Nine of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Realty index's over 4 per cent gain. Nifty Oil & Gas Consumer Durables, Healthcare, Oil & Gas, IT and Metal indices also rose between 0.5-1 per cent.
On the other hand, Nifty Bank, Financial Services, FMCG, PSU Bank and Private Bank indices ended with a negative bias.
Mid- and small-cap shares ended on a positive note as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices rose around 0.3 and 0.4 per cent respectively.
Shares of the country's largest electric vehicle maker and parent of Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors, surged as much as 8.12 per cent to hit highest level in seven months to Rs 473 on Monday after it reported strong global wholesales for January-March period.
Tata Motors' global wholesales, including sales of Jaguar land Rover, rose 8 per cent annually to 3,61,361 units in the last quarter of financial year 2023.
ONGC, Adani Enterprises, Grasim, Wipro, Adani Ports, Power Grid, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr Reddy's Labs and NTPC also rose between 1.5-4 per cent.
On the flipside, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Asain Paints, Tata Consumer Products, IndusInd Bank, Britannia India, SBI Life, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Reliance Industries were among losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 2,013 shares ended higher while 1,606 closed lower on the BSE.
