Sensex rises 160 points, Nifty above 12,900

Stock markets witnessed a strong day with the Nifty hitting above 13000 marks for the first-ever time.

In the previous session, Sensex ended 194.90 points or 0.44% higher at 44,077.15, and NSE Nifty rose 67.40 points or 0.52% to close at 12,926.45.

Major gainers in the Sensex pack were IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finserve, NTPC, RIL, Bajaj Finance, Tata Steel, ONGC, Sun Pharma, Powergrid, TCS, Nestle and Tech Mahindra, rising upto 3.92 percent.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries climbed 2.72 per cent, accounting for most of the Sensex's gains, after the Competition Commission on Friday evening said it has approved the conglomerate's proposed acquisition of Future Group's retail assets.

The losing companies were HDFC by 1.71 pc to Rs 2293.85, M& M by 1.50 pc to Rs 705.10, Kotak Bank by 0.88 pc to Rs 1872.55 and Titan by 0.69 pc to Rs 1355.55.

Meanwhile, optimism that the imminent availability of coronavirus vaccines could spur a faster economic recovery pushed world stocks higher on Monday.

"Additionally, as expected strong buying in mid-cap and small-cap stocks remained visible in the backdrop of improving earnings outlook scenario".

Barring telecom, all BSE sectoral indices ended in the green, led by bankex (2.37 per cent), auto (1.84 per cent), realty (1.78 per cent) and metal (1.37 per cent).

The Nifty Auto index was trading 1.72 per cent up at 8888.85 around 12:08PM.

According to traders, domestic indices rallied on positive sentiment on sustain foreign institutional investment flows into the market.

Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, rose 0.85 per cent to Dollars 46.45 per barrel.