Eicher Motors was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares.

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes rose for third day in a row led by gains in HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank and Tata Consultancy Services. The Sensex rose as much as 421 points and the Nifty 50 index briefly moved above important psychological level of 11,450. The benchmarks opened higher and extended gains in afternoon deals after the banking shares witnessed heightened buying interest and the Nifty Bank Index surging over 500 points at day's highest level.

The Sensex ended 292 points or 0.76 per cent higher at 38,506 and the NSE Nifty 50 index climbed 0.77 per cent or 87 points to 11,428.

All sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange barring the Nifty IT index ended higher led by the Nifty Auto index's over 2 per cent gain. Nifty Metal, Nifty Bank, Nifty Private Bank and Nifty FMCG indexes also rose between 1 and 1.6 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares underperformed their larger peers as the Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.2 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.1 per cent.

Eicher Motors was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, stock rose 4.69 per cent to Rs 19,187. Vedanta, Zee Entertainment, ONGC, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever and Britannia Industries were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, Bharti Infratel, Tata Motors, JSW Steel, UPL and Nestle India were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was marginally negative as 912 shares closed lower while 861 ended higher on the NSE.