The BSE index closed at its highest in 11 weeks on Tuesday, as hopes of aggressive rate cuts by central bank offset both profit-taking and global uncertainty after two explosions tore through Brussels airport on Tuesday morning killing 13 people.
Two explosions tore through Brussels airport on Tuesday morning killing 13 people in what Belgian public broadcaster VRT called a suicide attack, and a further blast struck a metro station in the capital shortly afterwards.
The 30-share BSE index Sensex ended higher by 45.12 points or 0.18 per cent at 25,330.49 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty ended up by 10.65 points or 0.14 per cent at 7,714.90.
Barring FMCG and banking, all other BSE sectoral indices ended in the green. Among them, realty index gained the most by 2.68 per cent, followed by consumer durables 1.6 per cent, power 1.23 per cent and capital goods 1.19 per cent.On the other hand, FMCG index was down 1.18 per cent and banking 0.01 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were BHEL (+4.29%), Hero MotoCorp (+2.28%), Tata Steel (+2.16%), M&M (+2.09%) and HDFC (+1.77%), while the major losers were Dr Reddy's (-3.78%), ITC (-2.04%), Adani Ports (-1.83%), HUL (-1.02%) and Coal India (-0.77%).
European shares fell sharply on Tuesday, with travel and leisure stocks leading the market lower after explosions in Brussels killed several people.
Asian stocks seesawed on Tuesday as hawkish comments from US Federal Reserve officials clouded the monetary policy outlook less than a week after Fed Chair Janet Yellen had set out a more cautious path to interest rate increases this year.