Indian equity market closed higher on Thursday, led largely by financials and auto stocks. In fact, four of the top five index gainers were from the financial space, led by Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank. The gains in banking heavyweights pushed the Nifty Bank 225 points to 26,155, while the benchmark Nifty spurted 40 points to 10,617.

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The Sensex too saw a gain of 119 points to end the day’s trade at 35,260. The midcap index also closed in the green surging 85 points to 17,569, but the gains still were not enough to turn market breadth in favour of advances. The NSE advance-decline ratio was at 3:4 at the close. More than 50 percent to the midcap index gains were contributed by Apollo Hospitals and M&M Finance, while Page Industries was the biggest loser.

Jet Airways was the stock of the day with the Naresh Goyal-led airline company posting its biggest ever one-day gain after a report of Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran batting for the Jet deal. Stock also saw the highest ever single-day trading volume of nearly 5 crore shares.

Oil marketing companies continued the move higher with Indian Oil Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. ltd gaining in a range of 1-2 percent as crude oil trades in a tight range.

Grasim was the biggest Nifty loser as market seems to consider fundraising by Vodafone Idea a big overhang for the stock.

In the currency market, rupee gained past 72 against the US dollar for the first time in the past two months.

In the futures market, Nifty 10,600 Put option added 3 lakh shares in the open interest with premium slipping 12 percent. Nifty November Futures narrowed its premium to 6 points from 29 points seen on Wednesday.

On the global front, Asian stocks were mostly higher on the back of an apparent improvement in market risk sentiment after British prime minister Theresa May managed to persuade her cabinet to back her draft Brexit agreement. The European Union leaders will meet on November 25 to endorse the separation deal.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 1.75 percent to close at 26,103.34. Shares of Tencent jumped 5.8 percent on the back of a better-than-expected earnings report for the third quarter.

The mainland China markets, which have been closely watched as a result of Beijing’s ongoing trade spat with Washington, saw gains. The Shanghai composite advanced 1.36 percent to close at about 2,668.17 and the Shenzhen composite gained 1.45 percent to finish the trading day at around 1,398.40.

The positive sentiment in Chinese stocks came on the back of three US government sources telling Reuters that Beijing had conveyed a written response to Washington’s demands for trade reforms.

Most other Asian markets saw gains too. In Australia, the benchmark ASX 200 closed fractionally higher at 5,736 as most sectors saw gains. The heavily weighted financial subindex, however, slipped slightly as Australia’s so-called Big Four banks fell.

Shares of Commonwealth Bank of Australia shed 0.5 percent, Westpac fell 0.43 percent and National Australia Bank declined by 0.21 percent. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s stock was largely flat.

In Japan, however, shares appeared to buck the overall positive trend of the day. The Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2 percent to close at 21,803.62, while the Topix index saw losses of 0.14 percent to finish the trading day at 1,638.97, as shares of conglomerate SoftBank fell 2.7 percent.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.97 percent to close at 2,088.06.

-with inputs from Reuters