Sensex pares gains after breaching 39,000-level
Markets moved in to April following a best monthly performance in three years last month.
Mumbai: The BSE benchmark Sensex pared significant gains towards the fag-end of the session after touching a record 39,000-level on Monday.
The 30-share gauge rallied over 400 points during the day to hit an all-time high of 39,115.57. But, it surrendered most of its gains to settle at 38,871.87, showing a rise of 198.96 points, or 0.51 per cent.
The Sensex gains were led by metal, auto, energy and infra sector stocks amid positive global cues.
Similarly, the NSE Nifty settled the day at 11,655.60, rising 31.70 points, or 0.27 per cent, over its previous close. The broader index gave up crucial gains after breaching the key 11,700-mark.
The Sensex rally was driven by Tata Motors, Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Larsen and Toubro and HCL Tech. The scrips of these firms rose as much as 7.37 per cent.
Other prominent gainers were Infosys, TCS, SBI, ITC, Yes Bank, Kotak Bank, Hero Moto, and Coal India.
Bucking the overall trend, shares of IndusInd Bank, Mahindra and Mahindra, Axis Bank, PowerGrid, HDFC, ONGC, HUL, BajajFinance and HDFC Bank declined.
Sectorally, metal emerged as the top performing BSE index, surging over 2 per cent. Other top sectoral gainers on the BSE were IT, tech, industrials, energy, telecom and auto.
On the other hand, realty and consumer durables indices witnessed a decline. Of the 19 sectoral indices, 12 ended in the green and 7 in the red.
Asian markets were trading positively amid optimism over China-US trade talks and expansion in manufacturing activity in China in March.
China and the US gave signs of some progress in their last week's discussions on the trade tariff tussle, with another round of talks scheduled to be held this week in Washington.
China's Shanghai Composite Index moved up 2.58 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.66 per cent, Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.43 per cent and South Korea's Kospi was 1.29 per cent higher.
In Europe, England's FTSE, Germany's DAX, and France's CAC 40 were trading higher.