Stocks on Monday continued their good run with the HDFC twins driving up the indices to their highest levels since January 19. The Sensex hit 60,000 levels in intra-day trades, while the Nifty50 surpassed the 18,000 mark for the first time since January. The market’s fear gauge — India VIX – declined 2.9% to 17.9 levels.

Strong economic data points, including buoyant GST collections, also lifted the sentiment.

International oil benchmark Brent crude gained over 2.6% to $107.21 a barrel on Monday.

After gaining as much as 1,568 points intra-day, the Sensex ended higher by 1,335.05 points or 2.25% at 60,611.74, and the broader Nifty50 gained 382.95 points or 2.17% to close at 18,053.40. The Nifty Bank, on the other hand, added 4% in the day’s trade, mainly due to huge gains in HDFC and HDFC Bank. Shares of HDFC and HDFC Bank ended higher by more than 9% each on Monday, being the top index gainers.

“Domestic equities surged higher backed by renewed buying by foreign investors and announcement of merger of heavyweight HDFC twins. The Nifty breached the 18k mark while the Sensex crossed 60k mark. Currently sentiments are upbeat given strong economic data points including high GST collection, robust port handling and record high exports,” Siddhartha Khemka, head of retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said.

All sectors ended in the green on Monday amid across-the-board buying by investors. The Nifty Bank was the top gainer, followed by the metals and pharma indices. The broader markets, too, surged in line with the headline indices as both BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices gained over 1% on Monday. In the overall market breadth, of the 3,672 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,647 advanced on Monday.

The 30-share Sensex was also the top gainer among other Asian markets. China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.94%, Hang Seng was up 2.1%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.25% on Monday.

Analysts expect the market to take its cues from the upcoming monetary policy in the current week and the beginning of the earnings season, which starts with the TCS results on April 11. “This week RBI’s policy meet is due, which would drive the market and thus banking stocks are likely to remain in the limelight. The Q4 results announcement would also kick off with IT companies which would be tracked closely by investors,” Khemka said.