Indian equities gained momentum regardless of feeble signs from the European markets.

Heavy buying activity was witnessed across heavyweights that aided the Sensex to continue its gains.

The 30-share index Sensex also hit an intraday peak of 18,797.58.

Both Indian bourses (Sensex and Nifty) were trading above 24-month high.

At 01:51 p. m., the Sensex gained 104.51 points at 18,771.22.

In contrast, the broad-based Nifty stood at 5,635.15 after making a gain of 27.30 points.

The BSE Sensex belled today's session on a flat note at 18,669.12, while the Nifty recorded a fall of 3.60 points.

European stocks backed away from a 4-month peak as the Federal Reserve announced that the US economic system showed widespread signals of retardation.

The BSE Midcap index gained 0.73% and the BSE Smallcap index remained up by 0.59%.

Among sectoral indices, the Bankex index gained 221.93 points (1.75%) and the PSU index remained up by 75.71 points to trade at 10,055.10.

The Capital Goods index surged 107.59 points at 15,079.06, while the FMCG index declined by 4.38 points to trade at 3,461.92.