Mumbai, Apr 26 (IANS): Positive global cues, along with healthy quarterly results, pushed the Indian equity markets higher on Monday.

The two key indices had a gap up opening in line with positive global cues.

Globally, Asian stocks climbed to six-week highs on Monday amid signs the world economic recovery was still well on track, though rising Covid-19 cases in the region, especially India and Japan, weighed on sentiment, pushing oil prices lower.

Besides, European equities drifted on Monday morning as investors balanced bets of a global recovery from coronavirus with caution ahead of the US Federal Reserve's latest meeting this week.

On the domestic front, metals, banks and realty were among the largest gainers, while pharma was among the loss leaders.

Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex closed at 48,386.51, higher by 508.06 points, or 1.06 per cent, from its previous close.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange ended the day's trade at 14,485, up 143.65 points, or 1 per cent, from its previous close.

"Falling volumes on an up-day denotes caution while a healthy advance decline ratio and relatively better performance of broader indices means that the traders or investors are focused more on the broader markets than the largecaps, where there is a risk of selloff by institutions," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

"In the near term, 14,339-14,405 band could offer support to the Nifty while a breach of 14,526 could take the Nifty up to 14,698."

Siddhartha Khemka, Head, Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said "Positive global cues along with medical support from across the globe to help India fight the pandemic, boosted market sentiments."

"In addition, good results from ICICI Bank and strong management commentary led to rally across the banking and financial stocks."