Mumbai, April 11 -- Bulls made a smart comeback to the Indian markets on Friday, with benchmark indices climbing nearly 2% with some help from short covering and selective buying. Alongside, fear gauge India Vix cooled by 6% to 20.11, after spiking 66% on Monday.

The upturn came on the back of rising hopes of a bilateral trade agreement between India and the US after the latter paused reciprocal tariffs for three months on all its trading partners, excluding China.

Significantly, bears didn't close out a significant number of their bearish positions, underscoring the uncertainty in the global economy and financial markets.

Indian stocks also outperformed stocks in Asia and Europe, which tanked, but US stocks traded in the green at the ...