The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE NIfty 50 indexes rose for a third day in a row to cloose at highest their highest levels since March 11 as banking, metal and pharma shares saw buying interest. The Sensex rose as much as 479 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 10,386. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finance, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto were among the top Sensex movers theu collectively contributed over 150 points to the Sensex.
The Sensex ended 180 points or 0.52 per cent higher to close at 34,911 and Nifty climbed 67 points or 0.65 per cent to end at 10,311.
"Rally in the markets has been on the back of strong gains in Reliance Industries and Bajaj Finance,"AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital told NDTV over phone. Mr Prabhakar advises not to take fresh long positions at current levels and stay on the sidelines.
All sector gauges barring the Nifty IT index were ended higher led by gains in Nifty PSU Bank index's nearly 4 per cent gain. Nifty Private Bank, Pharma, Media, Metal and Bank indexes also rose between 1.7-2.7 per cent each.
IT shares were facing selling pressure after the US President told Fox News in an interview that he will announce new restrictions on various work visas Sunday or Monday.
Among the individual shares, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals shares surged more than 35 per cent to a new 52-week high on Monday, after the company said it had received an approval from the government's drug regulator to market and manufacture oral antiviral drug Favipiravir for treating mild to moderate COVID-19 patients in the country.
Bajaj Auto was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 7 per cent to close at Rs 2,864. Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Coal India, Vedanta, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Power Grid, Indian Oil, Grasim Industries and Cipla were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, Wipro, GAIL India, ONGC, HDFC, Hindalco, TCS, HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,877 shares ended higher while 871 closed lower on the BSE.
