Sensex zooms 760 pts, Nifty tops 16,250; IT index up 3%, HDFC Bank dips 1%

CLOSING BELL: The frontline indices climbed on the back of gains in Infosys, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, TCS, Axis Bank, L&T, SBI, and Reliance Industries

CLOSING BELL

Stock market highlights: Riding on an upbeat global momentum, benchmark indices surged over 1 per cent higher on Monday, led by nearly broad-based buying. The S&P BSE Sensex jumped 760 points to end at 54,521 level while the Nifty closed at 16,279, up 229 points.

The frontline indices climbed on the back of gains in Infosys, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, TCS, Axis Bank, L&T, SBI, and Reliance Industries. All these index heavyweights rallied between 0.85 per cent and 4.5 per cent. Separately, Tech M, Bajaj twins, Wipro, Ultratech Cement, Tata Steel, Titan, and Asian Paints were the other gainers rising up to 3.5 per cent.

On the downside, Dr Reddy's Labs, HDFC Bank, HUL, Nestle, M&M, Maruti Suzuki, and HDFC were the laggards, down in the range of 0.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, in the broader market, Cholamandalam Finance, Shriram Transport Finance, Voltas, RBL Bank, Mindtree, Quick Heal, Vardhaman Textiles, and AP Tech lifted the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices 1.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent higher, respectively.

Sectorally, all the indices, except the Nifty Pharma index, settled in the positive territory. The Nifty IT index advanced over 3 per cent, followed by the Nifty PSB index (up 3 per cent), and the Nifty Metal index (2.5 per cent). The Pharma index, meanwhiole, eased 0.14 per cent.

Global cues

European stocks advanced on Monday to build on Friday's gains, although Italy's main index was muted amid political uncertainty. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index gained 1.2 per cent in early deals, with oil and gas stocks climbing 2.9 per cent to lead gains as all sectors and major bourses entered positive territory.

In Asia-Pacific on Monday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped more than 2 per cent, while US stock index futures were 1 per cent higher after a positive end to last week.