New Delhi: Markets posted strong gains with both the Sensex and Nifty closing above 1.30 percent as lower inflation figures gave way to expectations of an ease in the monetary policy by the Reserve Bank of India in its February policy review.


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The BSE Sensex jumped 464.77 points or 1.30 percent to 36,318.33 while the NSE Nifty jumped 149.20 points or 1.39 percent to 10,886.80.


The top gainer in the Sensex pack was Yes Bank (3.86 percent), followed by Infosys (3.66 percent), Vedanta (3.03 percent), Reliance (3.02 percent) TCS (2.74 percent) and Bajaj Finance (2.30 percent). Other gainers were Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp, HUL, Asian Paints and ONGC -- gaining as much as 1.73 percent.


Shares of Power grid, ICICI Bank and Maruti however ended in red by falling 0.72 percent.


Continued decline in food prices pulled down retail inflation to an 18-month low of 2.19 percent in December 2018. Another set of official data showed that the wholesale inflation too eased to an eight-month low of 3.80 percent in December on softening fuel and food prices.


On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 732.46 crore Monday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 527.49 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.
 


With Agency Inputs