NEW DELHI: Domestic benchmark equity indices continued to rally higher for the third straight day on Tuesday, in line with Asian peers, led by gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries and banking and financial stocks.

Investor sentiment remained upbeat despite a surge in US 10-year Treasury yield and a sharp jump in Covid cases globally. There are hopes that the economic impact of the ongoing Covid wave may not be as severe as the previous waves.
Making investors richer by Rs 4.76 lakh crore in the first two trading days of the New Year, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies has jumped by Rs 4,76,367.89 crore to reach Rs 2,70,76,579.44 crore.

The 30-share Sensex zoomed 382.7 points to 59,565.92 in early trade on Tuesday. Among Sensex names, NTPC rose 2.7 per cent to Rs 129.40. Power Grid added 1.9 per cent to Rs 208.75. Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, M&M, Maruti and ITC gained up to 1.5 per cent.
Select IT stocks such as HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Wipro fell up to 0.6 per cent.

One97 Communications was quoting nearly flat at Rs 1,339.15. JPMorgan believes the company can deliver nearly 60 per cent revenue growth and nearly 10 times expansion in contribution profits. It called Paytm one-of-its-kind "fintech horizontal" given its ability to drive monetisation.
Marico fell 2.93 per cent to Rs 499. Citi has maintained its buy rating on the stock with a target of Rs 640 post the company's Q3 update. Softness in India is offset by international performance, it said, adding that it does not see any material changes to consolidated earnings forecasts.

Tata Motors declined 1.3 per cent to Rs 491 after it attracted a 'sell' call from CLSA as the foreign brokerage believes the domestic personal vehicle segment is overvalued and that the subsidiary JLR.

Most Asian markets were trading in the black, capping the downside for domestic stocks. US stocks, meanwhile, settled at record closing highs in overnight trade, with Apple becoming the first company to hit the $3 trillion mark in m-cap.

Provisional data showed foreign portfolio investors turned buyers of domestic stocks to the tune of Rs 902.64 crore on Monday. DIIs were net buyers to the tune of Rs 803.11 crore, data suggests.
"If the FPI buying on Monday is an indication of their renewed interest in India, financials, particularly the leading banks, are likely to continue the momentum. But the 3rd wave of the pandemic is an area of concern even though the market's view is that it is unlikely to impact economic activity. An emerging headwind for markets globally is the rising inflation that may be further aggravated by the dislocations caused by the Omicron variant," said V K Vijayakumar of Geojit Financial Services.