Indian share markets continued to witness buying momentum in today’s session as well as it moved closer to an all-time high helped by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral success in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The sentiment also remained upbeat on bets that US tax reforms Bill will go through supported the uptrend.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex closed higher by 235 points and the NSE Nifty finished higher by 74 points. The S&P BSE Mid Cap finished up by 1.4% while S&P BSE Small Cap finished up by 1.5%. Gains were largely seen in metal sector, consumer durables sector, and auto sector.

Asian stock markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.88% and the Hang Seng rose 0.70%. The Nikkei 225 lost 0.15%. European markets are mixed today. The FTSE 100 is up 0.24% while the DAX gains 0.02%. The CAC 40 is off 0.07%.

Rupee was trading at Rs 64.12 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 57.45 at the time of writing.

Auto stocks rallied in today’s trade with Maruti Suzuki share price and Force motors share price surging above 5%. Meanwhile, Tata Motors share price, Ashok Leyland share price and Hero Motocorp share price too rallied in today’s trade with each stock surging above 3%.

The contribution of the top three players in the auto market has gone up from 65.6% in 2012-13 to 72% in 2016-17 and 74% in the first seven months of 2017-18, according to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data.

Top-of-the-pile Maruti saw its volumes increase by 27.2% between FY13 and FY17. Its market share rose from 39.5% to 47.4% in the period, further rising to 50.2% in FY18 (April-October).

Telecom stocks finished the day on a strong note with Reliance Communications share price and MTNL share price leading the gains.