Buy or sell stocks, June 17 -- Extending the recovery from Friday's lows, the Indian stock market opened with an upside gap and ended higher on Monday. The Nifty 50 index finished 229 points higher at 24,946, the BSE Sensex ended 677 points higher at 81,796, while the Bank Nifty index gained 417 points and closed at 55,944. BEL, HDFC Life and SBI Life emerged as major gainers on the Nifty. At the same time, Tata Motors, Dr Reddy and Sun Pharma bore the brunt of significant selling pressure, ultimately closing the session as major losers.

Vaishali Parekh, Vice President of Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher, believes the Indian stock market bias is cautious and optimistic as the Nifty 50 index is in the 24,500 to 25,200 range. The ...