The Indian stock market bounced back strongly on Monday despite geo-political tensions, with the benchmark indices ending the day on a robust note.
The rally was driven primarily by a surge in the strong performance from select banking stocks and hopes of a new India-US trade deal.
The Sensex opened with a positive gap of about 120 points, starting at 79,344. As the day progressed, the index continued to climb, reaching a fresh high for the year at 80,322 before closing at 80,218, up by 1,006 points, or 1.27 per cent.
This marked a significant recovery for the index. Similarly, the Nifty index also saw a positive movement, swinging between 24,054 and 24,355, and settling at 24,329, up by 289 points, or 1.2 per cent.
"On the higher end, 24,360 has remained a resistance level, and the Nifty might spend some more time around the current range unless 24,360 is decisively breached,” Rupak De of LKP Securities said.
He added that above 24,360, the index could move towards 24,550, where the 61.80 per cent Fibonacci retracement level of the previous fall from 26,277 to 21,743 lies.
Major banking stocks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and SBI contributed significantly to the market's strong performance, together adding up to 340 points to the Sensex. These top four stocks made up nearly 75 per cent of the day's total gains.
Among the individual gainers, Sun Pharma, Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Steel, SBI, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, and Larsen and Toubro all saw an increase of 2-3 per cent in their stock prices.
However, some stocks like HCL Technologies, UltraTech Cement, Hindustan Unilever, and Eternal faced losses, with HCL Technologies falling nearly 2 per cent.
In the broader market, the BSE MidCap index rose by 1.4 per cent, while the SmallCap index gained 0.4 per cent.
Sectoral indices also saw positive movement, with the BSE Oil and Gas index leading the way, climbing nearly 3 per cent.
Other sectors like banking, capital goods, auto, metal, and healthcare also ended on a strong note, with each index rising by over 1.5 per cent.
Rupee traded strong at 84.98, up by 0.25, supported by a sharp surge in capital markets, where major indices rose by 1.20 per cent and banking index jumped by 1.41 per cent.
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