Domestic equity benchmarks rose for third day in a row on the back of buying in banking heavyweights like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank and Yes Bank.
The SP BSE Sensex rose 216.51 points or 0.58 per cent to end at 37,752 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index advanced 40 points or 0.36 per cent to settle at 11,342.
At day's highest level Sensex rose 262 points and the Nifty 50 Index touched a high of 11,352.30.
In the last three sessions, Sensex has climbed 2.94 per cent and the Nifty 50 index has risen 2.78 per cent."Nifty is looking strong on charts and it can re-test all-time high levels seen in August last year," Sumeet Bagadia, executive director at Choice Broking told TheIndianSubcontinent over phone.He advises traders to go long on Nifty for targets of 11,500 and 11,700 with stop loss at 11,200.
Mr Bagadia expects the targets to be achieved in next two-three months and does not rule out volatility.Five of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended higher led by the Nifty Bank Index's 1.55 per cent gain.
Financial Services, PSU Bank and Private Bank indexes on the NSE also rose over a per cent each.
On the flipside, Nifty Metal, Pharma and Media Indexes were among the worst performers as they dropped around 2 per cent each.The mid- and small-cap shares underperformed their larger peers as the SP BSE MidCap Index fell 0.43 per cent and SP BSE SmallCap Index dropped 0.3 per cent.IndusInd Bank was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 4.32 per cent to Rs 1,637.
Yes Bank, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, HPCL and UPL were also among the gainers, up between 1.8 and 3.6 per cent each.
On the other hand, Indian Oil, Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, Zee Entertainment, Sun Pharma, and NTPC were among the laggards.The overall market breadth was negative as 1,657 shares ended lower while 1,076 ended higher on the BSE.