The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes surged for a fourth day in a row to end at highest levels since March 6 on Monday. The benchmarks staged a gap-up opening and extended gains in afternoon trading. The Sensex rallied as much as 640 points and Nifty 50 index moved above its important level of 10,800 at the day's highest level. Rally in today's session was powered by gains in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Bajaj Finance and Mahindra & Mahindra. These stocks collectively contributed over 400points towards gain in the Sensex.
The Sensex ended 466 points higher at 36,487 and Nifty 50 index climbed 156 points to close at 10,764.
The rally came even as India grapples with a jump in coronavirus cases, with the tally reaching 697,413 by Monday morning, including 19,693 deaths, health ministry data showed.
"While the case numbers are a deterrent for markets, data including manufacturing activity and car sales released last week indicated that we are coming back to normalcy," KK Mittal, investment analyst at Venus India told Reuters.
All the 11 sector gauges, barring the index of pharma companies, compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Auto and Realty indexes 3 per cent up move. Banking, metal, financial services and energy shares also witnessed buying interest.
Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed buying during the session as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rallied over 1.5 per cent each.
Defence company shares were in the limelight on the bourses for the second consecutive session, after rallying up to 12 per cent on Friday, as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) approved the purchase of missiles, ammunition and weapon systems worth Rs 38,900 crore in wake of the heightened tensions with China.
National Fertilizers Ltd soared 18.1 per cent to a one-year high and was set for its best day in more than five years after reporting a jump in June-quarter sales.
HDFC Bank shares gained nearly 4 per cent on Monday after the country's top private sector lender reported a jump of 21 per cent in loans as of June-end. On the BSE, the HDFC Bank stock gained by Rs 40.80 to trade at Rs 1,115.50 apiece at the strongest level recorded during the session.
Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Hindalco, Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Vedanta and TCS were among the top Nifty gainers.
On the flipside, Bajaj Auto, GAIL India, Bharti Airtel, Wipro and Dr Reddy's Labs were among the notable losers.
