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Indian equity benchmarks continued to rise for a fourth straight session on Monday, led by strength in power, utilities, auto and telecom stocks. Domestic indices made positive start and stayed in green for whole day, amid strong inflows from foreign investors. After nine consecutive months of relentless selling, foreign investors have turned net buyers and invested nearly Rs 5,000 crore in Indian equities in July on softening dollar index and good corporate earnings. Traders also found some encouragement as retail inflation for industrial workers eased to 6.16 per cent in June from 6.97 per cent in May this year due to lower prices of certain food items and petrol. Some optimism also came with the government data showed that the output of eight core infrastructure sectors expanded by 12.7 per cent in June against 9.4 per cent in the year-ago period.

Key gauges added gains to trade at day’s high points in late afternoon session, as India's manufacturing sector activity gained momentum in July, hitting an eight-month high driven by a significant uptick in business orders. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose from 53.9 in June, to 56.4 in July, highlighting the strongest improvement in the health of the sector in eight months. Sentiments remained upbeat after finance ministry said that India collected Rs 1.49 lakh crore as Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July, posting an increase of 28 percent from the same month last year. Compared to the money collected in June, the July GST mop-up was 3 percent higher. Meanwhile, the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in its latest data has showed that the central government's fiscal deficit touched 21.2 per cent of the annual target in the June quarter as against 18.2 per cent in the year-ago period.

On the global front, Asian markets settled mostly higher on Monday, while European markets were trading higher on the back of better-than-expected earnings and easing concerns over the need for continued aggressive interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The upside remained capped by mixed earnings updates and the latest manufacturing surveys showed weakening factory activity in Asia and Europe. Asian manufacturing output continued to weaken in July amid lingering supply-chain complications and a slowing global economy, a slew of surveys showed earlier in the day. Also, factory activity across the euro zone contracted in July, adding to concerns the bloc could fall into a recession. The region's manufacturing PMI index fell to 49.8 from 52.1 in June, S&P Global said.

Back home, aviation industry stocks were in focus after oil marketing companies reduced aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices by a major 12 per cent to Rs 1.21 lakh per kilolitre in Delhi. Sugar industry stocks were in action with a private report that the Centre is likely to allow an additional 1.2 million tonnes (MT) of sugar exports in the current season ending September 2022 taking into account higher-than-anticipated domestic production. This additional quota would be over and above 10 MT of sugar exports allowed for the current 2021-22 season.

Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 545.25 points or 0.95% to 58,115.50 and the CNX Nifty was up by 181.80 points or 1.06% to 17,340.05. 

The BSE Sensex touched high and low of 58,170.67 and 57,540.36, respectively. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.51%, while Small cap index was up by 1.47%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 3.43%, Utilities up by 3.38%, Auto up by 3.23%, Telecom up by 2.49% and Industrials up by 2.31%, while there were no losing sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 6.15%, Reliance Industries up by 2.64%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.64%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 2.42% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.40%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 2.65%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.45%, Indusind Bank down by 0.40%, Nestle down by 0.35% and Asian Paints down by 0.26% were the top losers.

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