After a modest performance last week, markets today ended on a positive note. The S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.89% to end at 34.445.75 while the Nifty50 closed at 10,582.60 by acquiring 0.87%. Through the course of the day, the S&P BSE Sensex pocketed 303.60 points while the Nifty50 ended 91.55 points high.

“Shares of key automobile and metal companies led gains in benchmark equity indices. On the other hand, Information Technology (IT) companies lagged post a slight appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar and after Nasscom stated that it expects India’s IT sector exports to grow by 7-9% in FY2019, slightly higher than the expected growth of 7.8% in this year”, said Mr. Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager-Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

“After going through bouts of volatility last week, the Indian equity market opened Monday morning on an optimistic note tracking gains in Asian and European markets as a fall in US bond yields offered some respite to global investors”, he added

Maruti, TataMoters, L&T, IndusInd Bank and Axis Bank were among the top performers while SunPharma, Infosys, TechMahindra and TCS were major losers. Sectorally apart from Healthcare, IT, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Technology all other indices ended green. The BSE Midcap climbed 0.74% while the BSE Small cap ended at 0.88% high.

Analyzing the functioning of markets today Mr. Lakshmanan said that the expectations of favorable macroeconomic data buoyed the market sentiment. “According to data released by the Central Statistics Office, India’s Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow at 6.5% in 2017-18”, he added.

At the end of the trading session, the net value withdrawn by the foreign investors was Rs 1119.51 Cr while the net value invested by the domestic investors was Rs 1409.45 Cr.

Among the global markets, Shanghai Composite and Nikkei closed green while at the time of writing this piece FTSE 100 and DAX were also green.

Meanwhile, among in the precious metal section, gold gained 0.31% by closing on Rs 30,605 while crude oil prices dipped 0.10% to end at 4121.

At the end of the day the trading session, the Nifty Volatility Index (VIX) was 13.69, down by 3.59% indicating a cool off for at least time being.