Market close: Sensex retains gains to close up by 369 points

BSE Sensex had an eventual day on Tuesday as it was up more than a per cent during intraday trade. The benchmark index finally closed the day up 369 points or 0.95 per cent at 39,275.64. While Nifty Bank closed with 427 points gain just 100 points away from its all-time high.

Banking stocks were the major supporters of the rally, while IT majors dragged the index. The breadth of the market was clearly in favour of the bulls with Nifty50 showing 36 advances as against 13 declines and one unchanged stock.

Sensex opened at 39,040.30 and managed to hit a high of 39,364.34. The biggest contributors to the index's gains in closing hours of trade were Bajaj Finance contributing 136.00 points, followed by L&T 105.70 points, while HDFC Bank, Reliance and Tata Motor contributing approximately 60 points.

On the other hand, Nifty closed at 11,787.15, with 96.80 points gain or up 0.83 per cent. Nifty opened at 11,736.20 and hit an intraday high of 11,810.95 during the day. Among the top gainers on the 50 stock index were Indusind Bank, ICICI Bank, Titan, ONGC and Grasim, whereas among the top losers were Wipro, Cipla, GAIL, Tata Motors and Infy.

The promise of a close to normal monsoon as forecasted by the Indian Metrological Department (IMD) fueled the market rally.