Last hour recovery lifts Nifty above 10,500, Sensex 113 pts; midcaps outperform

The recovery in the last hour of trade helped the market close higher for the eighth consecutive session on Monday despite sluggish global cues. Continued hopes of normal monsoon expected in the current year and favourable earnings season boosted sentiment.

HDFC twins, FMCG, pharma and select auto stocks supported the market, but the weakness Infosys and Tata Motors capped gains.

The 30-share BSE Sensex recovered 406 points from day's low to end 112.78 higher at 34,305.43 while the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 47.80 points to 10,528.40.

"We feel global factors may continue to influence the market move in between but now earnings and other local factors have become crucial for any directional move," Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking said.

The pace of rise in the index would be gradual from here on thus focusing on stocks make more sense, he added.

Global markets were mixed amid geopolitical tensions on the back of US-led airstrikes on Syria last week and imminent prospect of fresh US sanctions against Russia.

China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended down 1.5 percent each while Japan's Nikkei, Australia's ASX 200 and South Korea's Kospi ended marginally in the green.

Britain's FTSE was down 0.4 percent while Germany's DAX was up 0.2 percent at the time of writing this article. Crude oil prices declined over a percent following a rise in US drilling for new production.

Back home, the broader markets outperformed frontliners, with the Nifty Midcap index rising 158 points despite weak breadth. About 850 shares declined against 746 advancing shares on the NSE.

Meanwhile, the June-September monsoon is likely to be ‘normal’ this year, the Meteorological Department said, a forecast that could cheer millions of farmers. The south-west monsoon is likely to be 97 percent of the long period average (LPA), implying normal summer rains according to the Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD’s) classification.

Infosys was down 3.3 percent after the country's second largest IT services provider lowered its EBIT margin guidance for financial year 2018-19.

Tata Motors was the biggest loser among Nifty50 stocks, falling 5 percent after Jaguar Land Rover said it is planning to cut jobs to scale back production at some of its UK sites.

Cipla shares rallied 5.3 percent after sources told CNBC-TV18 that the US health regulator has inspected Indore facility with no data integrity or repeat observations.

Kotak Mahindra Bank toppled SBI in market capitalisation and became 10th most valued listed firm, rising 1.88 percent.

HDFC, HDFC Bank, ITC, TCS, Bajaj Finance, L&T, Hero Motocorp and Maruti Suzuki among others gained 0.9-2 percent while ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries were down 0.2 percent each.