Equity benchmarks gained strength on Tuesday, with the Sensex rising over 150 points after two-day consolidation, driven by banks and auto stocks. The broader markets outperformed benchmarks in late trade, with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices up 0.7-0.8 percent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex surged 173.01 points to 26899.56 and the 50-share NSE Nifty jumped 52.55 points to 8288.60.

While retaining September 2017 target of 30,000 on the Sensex, Surendra Goyal of Citi says the market is likely to be rangebound till some clarity emerges.

Deutsche Bank too says 2017 is expected to be a year of uncertainty and the market is likely to be volatile and uncertain in the first half and recover in the second half.

Domestically, verdict of five state elections in March, Union Budget in February, developments over rollout of GST and other executive actions hold key to earnings and sentiments, Deutsche Bank says. Global factors that are likely to dictate trend in the markets include US President-elect Trump’s economic policies, outcome of the French and German elections, how the UK manages ‘Brexit’ and the path of CNY, it adds.

IndusInd Bank gained 0.2 percent today after slightly better-than-expected quarterly earnings. The private sector lender reported a 29.2 percent growth in profit and 34.5 percent in net interest income on yearly basis while its asset quality moderately weakened during the quarter.

Hindalco Industries shares rallied 4 percent. Motilal Oswal says the aluminium major remained its top pick in the metals and mining sector. It has reiterated buy rating on the stock and valued at Rs 234, implying 48 percent upside. It says although volume growth is tapering, its commendable achievements in reducing cost of production, rising share of high-margin autos in Novelis’ volumes and strict discipline in capital allocation are driving strong free cash flows (FCF).

Tata Motors and Adani Ports were leading gainers among Sensex stocks, up 3 percent each followed by HDFC Bank, ITC, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and L&T. HDFC, Axis Bank, HUL and Dr Reddy’s Labs were under pressure.

In the broader space, Max Ventures gained 10 percent after the board approval for a stake sale of 22.51 percent to a subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company for Rs 121 crore.

Engineers India rose nearly 3 percent on receiving a project worth Rs 2,500 crore from HPCL for execution of Vizag refinery modernisation.

Bharat Electronics climbed 4 percent as Credit Suisse has initiated coverage on the stock with an outperform rating and target price of Rs 1,800 based on steady growth visibility and reasonable valuations. The brokerage house expects 15 percent revenue growth and 14 percent earnings growth on the backlog of Rs 35,000 crore and strong inflows.

The market breadth was in favour of advances. About 1658 shares advanced against 1142 declining shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Asian markets ended lower today with the Japan’s Nikkei falling 0.8 percent after the yen strengthened against the dollar. European equity benchmarks were moderately higher at the time of writing this article.