Equity indices trade higher as banking, pharma stocks rally

Equity benchmark indices rose by nearly 1 per cent during early hours on Monday led by gains in banking, pharma and metal stocks.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S-P Sensex was up by 326 points or 0.94 per cent at 35,057 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 101 points or 0.99 per cent at 10,346.

Except for Nifty IT, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the positive terrain with Nifty PSU bank up by 2.6 per cent, private bank by 2.3 per cent, pharma by 1.8 per cent and metal by 1 per cent.

Among stocks, IndusInd Bank was up by 3.1 per cent to Rs 498.70 while ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank gained by 3 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.