Equity indices trade higher, Eicher Motors top gainer

Equity benchmark indices traded on a positive note during early hours on Monday led by gains in financial and auto stocks.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 215 points or 0.56 per cent at 38,650 while the Nifty 50 gained by 68 points or 0.6 per cent at 11,440.

Except for Nifty IT and pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with Nifty private bank moving up by 1.6 per cent, financial service by 1.5 per cent and auto by 1.1 per cent.

Among stocks, Eicher Motors witnessed a dramatic jump of 8.4 per cent to Rs 2,353 per share.

Kotak Mahindra Bank gained by 2.8 per cent, HDFC Bank by 2.2 per cent and ICICI Bank by 1.2 per cent. Grasim, Ad Ports, Asian Paints and Bharat Petroleum Corporation too traded with a positive bias.

However, those which lost were Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Cipla, Sun Pharma and Titan.

Meanwhile, Asian shares advanced underpinned by hopes after the US Food and Drug Administration authorised the use of blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a treatment option.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan jumped by 0.65 per cent while Japan's Nikkei reversed early losses to be up by 0.4 per cent. South Korea's Kospi climbed by 0.9 per cent.

( With inputs from ANI )