Rising for the third straight session, the benchmark Sensex gained about 44 points to close at over two-week high of 26,394.01 led by gains in select blue-chips.

The 30-share Sensex ended higher by 43.84 points or 0.17 per cent at 26,394.01, its highest closing since November 11, when it had closed at 26,818.82.

Intra-day, it shuttled between 26,587.07 and 26,354.66.

The gauge had gained 490 points in the previous two sessions.

The NSE Nifty, after touching a high of 8,197.35, slipped to 8,128.70 before closing 15.25 points, or 0.19 per cent, higher at 8,142.15.

Among BSE sectoral indices, auto index was the star-performer and was up 2.2 per cent, followed by consumer durables 0.93 per cent, infrastructure 0.29 per cent and realty 0.26 per cent. On the other hand, IT index was down 0.51 per cent, FMCG 0.47 per cent, banking 0.39 per cent and healthcare 0.17 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Maruti (+3.96%), Asian Paints (+2.17%), Bharti Airtel (+2.11%), GAIL (+2.07%) and Hero MotoCorp (+2.05%), while the major losers were Axis Bank (-1.59%), Sun Pharma (-1.05%), ITC (-0.99%), TCS (-0.83%) and Infosys (-0.71%).

Sentiment remained upbeat for the better part of the day after the government had yesterday provided yet another opportunity to black money holders to legalise their wealth.

RBI had yesterday said lenders had received Rs 8.45 lakh crore ($123.07 billion) in deposits, a substantial amount of the notes that were declared worthless earlier this month.

The government has proposed to tax at 50 per cent the unaccounted demonetised cash that is disclosed voluntarily till December 30, after which a steep up to 85 per cent tax and penalty will be levied on undisclosed wealth that is discovered by authorities.

“The government has succeeded in mobilising large sum of money under demonetisation, now they are working on giving unaccounted money an opportunity to come into the legal system," said Deven Choksey, managing director, KR Choksey Securities, adding that there has been some help with the stabilisation of the rupee.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,436.40 crore yesterday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges.

In overseas markets, most Asian stocks fell ahead of key global events set to take place this week, including a meeting tomorrow of global oil producers and the release of the US non-farm payroll report this Friday.

US had stocks declined yesterday, for their worst performance in nearly a month, weighed down by a pullback in the financial and consumer discretionary sectors as some investors booked profits on the heels of a record-setting week.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW