Indian stock markets closed slightly higher on Monday, erasing most gains they had made in the morning session. The BSE Sensex, which was trading over 250 points higher in the morning, declined to close 70.75 points up at 38,095.07. The NSE Nifty, which was trading over 75 points higher in the morning, finished 35.35 points ahead at 11,462.20.

The rise in the markets in the morning session was the result of inflows of foreign funds and healthy buying in finance and banking stocks, Mint reported. However, the market remained volatile the whole day, with Tata Motors losing its position as the top gainer on both indices.

The top gainers on the Sensex for the day Bajaj Finance, Power Grid Corporation, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries and Tata Steel. The biggest losers were Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, Bharti Airtel, HCL Technologies and Mahindra and Mahindra.

On the Nifty, the stocks which gained the most were Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Bajaj Finance, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and JSW Steel. The stocks which declined the most were Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, Wipro, Bharti Airtel and HCL Technologies.

Other Asian markets too closed higher on Monday. The Australia ASX All Ordinaries closed 18.50 points up, the Shanghai SE Composite Index 74.67 points higher, the Hong Kong Hang Seng up by 382.60 points, and the Taiwan TSEC 50 Index by 73.46 points. Japan’s Nikkei 225 also finished 133.65 points higher.

The Indian rupee was trading 56 paise up at 68.53 to the United States dollar at 4.38 pm.