April 21 (Reuters) - Indian equity benchmarks closed at six-week highs on Tuesday, as bank shares rose on optimism over earnings and a partial rollback of curbs on rupee trading, while prospects of U.S.-Iran talks also helped.
The U.S. expressed confidence that peace talks with Iran would go ahead in Pakistan this week, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining, as the end of a ceasefire loomed.
The Nifty 50 rose 0.87% to 24,576.60, and the BSE Sensex added 0.96% to 79,273.33. The benchmarks have risen 10% so far in April, after falling almost 11.5% in March.
The gains on Tuesday were broad-based, with 13 of the 16 major sectors advancing.
"The ceasefire and the evolving U.S.-Iran peace dialogue still carry significant uncertainty, and near-term market direction is likely to remain heavily influenced by developments in the Middle East," said Amnish Aggarwal, co-head, institutional equities at PL Capital.
The Iran war-led spike in oil prices, which worsens India's inflation and growth outlook, has triggered a foreign investor exodus from shares.
Heavyweight financials rose 1.2%, and banks jumped 1.4% after the Reserve Bank of India partially rolled back restrictions on rupee derivative trades imposed earlier this month to arrest the currency's slide, a move initially estimated to lead to steep losses for banks.
HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank - two heaviest weighted benchmark stocks - jumped 2.1% and 2.4% on earnings optimism after they reported March quarter numbers over the weekend. ICICI Bank rose 0.7% on Monday, while HDFC Bank had dropped 0.6%.
The broader small-caps and mid-caps gained 0.9% and 0.5%, respectively.
Nestle India jumped 7.3% on quarterly profit rise.
On the flip side, SBI Life Insurance slumped 3.6% to be the top Nifty loser after a finance ministry official told ET Now the government has asked banks to not have exclusive tie-ups with insurers.
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Harikrishnan Nair)
By Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M
