BENGALURU: Indian stocks rose on Monday, after two straight sessions of declines, helped by gains in financial stocks as banks reported strong quarterly results over the weekend.

The Nifty 50 index closed 0.50% higher at 18,118.55, while the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.53 percent to 60,941.67.

Thirty-two of the Nifty 50 constituents advanced while 18 declined. Most of the major sectoral indexes gained, with the heavyweight financials rising 0.61 percent.

Private lenders ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank advanced about 0.16% and 1.18%, respectively, after reporting higher quarterly net profit and healthy loan growth.

“Financials is one pocket that cannot be ignored and will likely power markets in the near term,” said Mayuresh Joshi, head of equity research at William O’Neil India.

The earnings from the financials space have been along expected lines on all key parameters such as advances growth, asset quality, net interest margin and provisioning, he added.

Anita Gandhi, director at Arihant Capital Markets said, “Not just the major private lenders ... (but) even housing finance companies like Can Fin Homes have reported good numbers.”