Mumbai, March 6 (PTI): The markets made a powerful comeback on Monday as the Sensex rallied almost 216 points and reclaimed the 29,000-mark to close at a two-year high, cashing in on solid gains in index heavyweight RIL amid mixed global cues.
The all-powerful GST Council approved the final draft of central GST (C-GST) and integrated GST (I-GST) and will take up for approval the State-GST and Union Territory-GST (UT-GST) laws at its next meeting due March 16, which instilled a sense of confidence in investors.
The 30-share barometer remained up throughout and hit a high of 29,070.20, powered by a rally in RIL and other blue-chips. The index ended 215.74 points up, or 0.75%, at 29,048.19 — its highest closing since March 5, 2015, when it had closed at 29,448.95.
The index has lost 152.04 points over the past two days.
The optimism led to the NSE Nifty gaining 65.90 points, or 0.74 %, to end at 8,963.45, a level last seen on March 3, 2015, too when it settled at 8,996.25.
Reliance Industries came out top on the heap, surging 3.69 % and settling at a fresh 9-year high of Rs 1,304.90, after the company announced that the promoters will be reshuffling their shareholding.
RIL has gone up by over 21% after its telecom venture Jio said last month that it will begin charging for data services from April.
Dredging Corporation rallied 12.68 % to close at Rs 502, largely on reports of possible stake sale.
Other major gainers that fed the rally were Adani Ports (2.48 %), Tata Motors (2.30 %), Bharti Airtel (1.81 %) and SBI (1.79 %). As many as 23 stocks finished higher while 7, including TCS, Hindustan Unilever and Dr Reddy’s, ended lower.
On the sectoral front, oil & gas zoomed 1.32 %, followed by infrastructure, auto and power.
Broader markets such as the BSE mid-cap and small-cap went up.
