Despite the mostly positive trend across other Asian markets, Indian indexes opened lower and remained weak for most part of the day. Sharp gains in select banking stocks led to a recovery in late trading and the indexes managed to end with marginal gains.

Sensex closed with gains of 16 points at 13781 and the Nifty gained 2 points to end at 4079. Nifty May futures closed at a premium of 17 points to the spot index.

SBI pulled back smartly from yesterday's fall and was the best performing Nifty stock with gains of 3.81 per cent. PNB ended 2.25 per cent higher

Some of the smaller financial stocks continued to rally. IDBI gained 4.78 per cent and IDFC closed 3.21 per cent higher.

Reliance Capital sustained its up trend and gained another 2.86 per cent.