Shares of State Bank of India, ONGC, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto and GAIL were prominent gainers followed by TCS, L&T, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, and Mahindra and Mahindra with 0.4-0.7 percent.

Equity benchmarks gained marginal strength with the Sensex rising 65.33 points to 26379.62 and the Nifty advancing 17 points to 7892.30 supported by banks, auto and oil & gas stocks.

The broader markets continued to outperform benchmarks; the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rose 0.9 percent each. About 1326 shares have advanced, 559 shares declined, and 64 shares are unchanged.

However, Sesa Sterlite and Tata Steel fell more than a percent after Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved royalty revision of 23 major minerals. Shares of Infosys, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Hero Motocorp, Bharti Airtel and Cipla declined 0.4-1 percent.