Closing Bell: Indian shares edged higher on Tuesday, aided by an uptick in metal stocks, after China announced it will further ease its strict COVID-19 restrictions.

Sensex jumped 361 points to close at 60,927, while Nifty climbed 117 points to end at 18,132.

Bank Nifty opened positive at 42,828 and after early declines, it managed to hold the 42,400 level and headed higher to hit a day’s high of 42,927.

The broader markets continued to perform better than benchmarks for a second consecutive session on strong breadth. The Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices rose around 1% each. The BSE midcap index rose 0.8% while smallcap index added 1.4%.

Rupee closes down 0.24% at 82.8475 per U.S. Dollar. The oil & gas, power and realty indices rose 1% each.

In terms of sectoral indices, Metal stocks were the biggest winners. BSE Metal index climbed by a whopping 905.06 points or 4.59%. Similarly, on NSE, the Metal index skyrocketed over 4%. Additionally, capital goods, IT, commodities, industrials, telecom, PSU banks, and realty indices also contributed to the broader gains substantially by surging between 1-2.5%.

Asian Stock Market

Closing Bell: Tokyo shares ended higher, trading in a narrow range as the market lacked fresh clues during winter holidays. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.16%, or 42.00 points, to 26,447.87, while the broader Topix index climbed 0.40%, or 7.63 points, to 1,910.15.

China’s blue-chip CSI 300 Index ended higher 1.2%, while the Shanghai Composite Index added 1%.

By Tuesday morning in Hong Kong, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.5%. China’s bluechip gained 0.6% and Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose 0.43%. Early in trade, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7%, and China’s Shanghai Composite advanced 0.4%.

Oil prices rose to three-week highs on Tuesday as China’s latest easing of COVID-19 restrictions spurred fuel demand hopes, while concerns that winter storms across the United States are affecting energy production continued to support prices.

Brent crude was up 52 cents, or 0.6%, at $84.44 a barrel by 0712 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $80.04 a barrel, up 48 cents, or 0.6%. They hit their highest since 5 December 2022 earlier in the session.

Gold prices rose on Tuesday. Spot gold was up 0.6% at $1,807.69 per ounce. U.S. gold futures rose 0.6% to $1,814.80.

Also read: Opening Bell: Market Rose After China Said It Would Drop Its Quarantine