Equity benchmark indices bounced back on Tuesday after two days of losses as investors globally continued to weigh the economic impact of ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
A slowdown in the rate of new infections provided some relief, but the market players still worried over the wider global economic impact. On the domestic front, the market sentiment was lifted by buying in metals, banks and auto stocks.
At the closing bell, the BSE S & P Sensex was up by 237 points to 41,216 while the Nifty 50 ticked up by 76 points at 12,108.
Except for Nifty FMCG which slipped marginally, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the positive terrain with Nifty metal advancing by 0.8 per cent, financial service by 0.6 per cent and auto by 0.4 per cent.
Among stocks, GAIL emerged as the top winner by gaining 5.9 per cent at Rs 129 per share. JSW Steel gained by 3.8 per cent and Hindalco by 1.6 per cent.
Auto major Maruti accelerated by 1.94 per cent while State Bank of India was up by 1.8 per cent. The other prominent gainers were Bharti Infratel, Power Grid Corporation of India and Adani Ports.
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However, Yes Bank slipped by 2 per cent to Rs 36.80 per share. Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Mahindra & Mahindra and Britannia also traded with a negative bias.
Meanwhile, Asian share markets traded higher even as doubts grew about how quickly China's factories can get back to work given that the coronavirus continues to spread and deaths mount.
The Shanghai Composite was up by 0.39 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index surged by 1.26 per cent. South Korea's Kospi gained by about 1 per cent. Japan's Nikkei was closed for a holiday.
The total number of deaths in China has topped 1,000, well past the toll from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 worldwide.
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