Axis Bank was the biggest gainer among Nifty50 stocks, rising 5.2 percent after the board of directors accepted the request from Shikha Sharma MD & CEO to reconsider her appointment to be revised from June 1, 2018 upto Dec 31, 2018.
The market extended gains for fourth consecutive session on Tuesday, with the Nifty closing above 10,400 levels for the first time since March 14 this year on positive global stocks after China's comments soothed trade war tensions. Investors await corporate earnings that will start later in the week with Infosys numbers.
The 30-share BSE Sensex rose 91.71 points to 33,880.25 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 22.90 points at 10,402.30, driven by ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and metals stocks.
"Nifty has to clear the 10,400-10,600 zone convincingly to force bears to cover their shorts. Investors will do well to focus on individual stocks and sectors till Nifty manages to navigate out of this trading range," VK Sharma, Head Private Client Group & Capital Market Strategy at HDFC Securities said.
He further said investors will keenly watch out for the FOMC minutes of the March meeting due tomorrow in USA. It will give insights into current thinking of the FOMC members and glide-path of interest rates this year.
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Global markets were higher on hopes that trade war between world's largest economies may be resolved soon, especially after Chinese President Xi Jinping's comments on measures planned to further open up the Chinese economy.
European stocks - France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were up 0.5-1 percent at the time of writing this article while China's Shanghai Composite, Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up 1.7 percent each while Japan's Nikkei was up 0.5 percent.
Crude oil prices also extended gains, with Brent crude oil futures trading 1.2 percent higher at USD 69.5 a barrel.
Back home, the broader markets also closed higher after volatility, with the Nifty Midcap index rising 0.2 percent but the market breadth was in favour of declines. About 842 shares declined against 717 advancing shares on the NSE.
Back home, Axis Bank was the biggest gainer among Nifty50 stocks, rising 5.2 percent after the board of directors accepted the request from Shikha Sharma MD & CEO to reconsider her appointment to be revised from June 1, 2018 upto Dec 31, 2018.
ICICI Bank was up nearly 3 percent. Axis Bank MD & CEO Shikha Sharma’s decision to step down is seen adding to the pressure on the ICICI Bank board to re-examine the tenure of its MD and CEO, Chanda Kochhar.
Metals stocks rallied on the back of rising aluminium prices as well as cooling off of trade war concerns between US and China. The Nifty Metal index gained 2 percent, led by gains in stocks such as Hindalco, Tata Steel, NMDC, NALCO, and Hindustan Copper, among others which rose up to 4 percent.
Tata Motors share price declined over a percent after Kotak Securities slashed target price on the stock and CLSA retains sell rating on the stock.
L&T, Adani Ports, SBI, Tech Mahindra, Yes Bank, Bharti Airtel and ONGC gained up to 3 percent while HDFC Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Hero MotoCorp, Indiabulls Housing and M&M fell up to 3 percent.
Among midcaps, Balrampur Chini, Bajaj Hindusthan, Praj Industries, IIFL Holdings, Prataap Snacks, Ramco Cements, Ramco Systems, Fortis Healthcare, PC Jeweller, Nalco and Tata Power rallied up to 18 percent.
Union Bank, Bank of India, Federal Bank, IDFC Bank, Lemon Tree Hotels, Mahanagar Gas, Indraprastha Gas and Gujarat Gas were down up to 7 percent.