Stock Market ended higher for the second consecutive session and touched a one-month high on Monday. Nifty crossed 24,300, intraday, amid buying across sectors, led by realty, media, and metals.

The recovery was primarily driven by gains in heavyweight stocks, including Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Infosys, and Bharti Airtel, which collectively supported the market’s upward movement.

At close, the Sensex was up 445.29 points or 0.59% at 80,248.08, and the Nifty was up 144.90 points or 0.6% at 24,276.

On Nifty, 33 closed the session in the green, with UltraTech Cement (4%) emerging as the top performer. It was followed by Apollo Hospitals, Grasim Industries, Shriram Finance, JSW Steel, Adani Ports & SEZ, Tech Mahindra, and 16 other stocks, which rose between 1% and 3.5%.

On the losing side were HDFC Life Insurance falling by 2.7% followed by Cipla, NTPC, SBI Life Insurance, Britannia Industries, HUL, Kotak Mahindra Bank, L&T, and IndusInd Bank, all of which ended the day with losses exceeding 0.5%.

On BSE, over 240 stocks touched their 52-week high on the BSE including Affle India, Caplin Labs, Coforge, Divis Labs, Dixon Technologies, eClerx Services, Info Edge, Kaynes Technologies, KEC International, Laurus Labs, Lloyds Metals, Medplus Health, PB Fintech, Praj Industries, Suven Pharma, Syngene International, Vedant Fashions, among others.

Nifty Realty emerged as the top performer among the sectoral indices, gaining 3.04%. Other sectoral indices including Nifty Consumer Durables, Nifty Pharma, Nifty Media, Nifty Auto, Nifty Infra, and Nifty IT ended the session with gains ranging from 0.80% to 2%.

On the downside, Nifty PSU Bank was the worst performer, slipping by 0.2%, while Nifty FMCG also saw a mild decline of 0.05%.

Shares of cement companies rallied led by Ultratech Cement, which surged nearly 4% to top the Nifty 50 gainers list after Jefferies expressed optimism about a recovery for Indian cement companies in the second half of the fiscal year.

Other players, including Shree Cement, India Cements, JK Lakshmi Cement, JK Cement, Andhra Cements, and ACC, also advanced by 0.5-5%.

The BSE midcap and smallcap indices rose 1% each. The market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies rose to Rs 449.72 lakh crore, from Rs 446.47 lakh crore in the previous session.

Among some of the key individual performances, shares of Hyundai Motor India slipped over 1% after the company reported a sharp decline in November sales.

Cochin Shipyard shares hit a 5% upper circuit after the company signed a Rs 1,000 crore contract with the Ministry of Defence.

Cipla shares fell nearly 1.4% after as many as 1.4 crore shares or 1.7% equity of the company changed hands in four block deals.

The Indian rupee touched another record low of 84.70 against the US dollar.