New Delhi, Apr 22 (IANS): Small cap stocks are outperforming the benchmark indices in trade on Monday.

The small cap index is up 1.3 per cent while the Sensex is up by 0.5 per cent. The mid-cap index is also outperforming with gains of 0.9 per cent.

The SME IPO index is doing even better with huge gains of 2.6 per cent. The BSE IPO index is up 1.6 per cent.

Among the sectors, the consumer durables stocks index is up 2.1 per cent in a market where most of the sectoral indices are in the green. Industrial stocks are up 1.7 per cent, realty stocks are up 1.4 per cent and capital goods stocks index is also up 1.4 per cent.

The market breadth is very positive with 68 per cent stocks advancing and 26 per cent declining. As many as 361 stocks are locked in on the upper circuit.

BSE Sensex was trading at 73,489 points, up 401 points on Monday. Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, and L&T are up more than 2 per cent in trade.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said the biggest positive for the market in the near term is that the feared escalation in the Israel-Iran tension is unlikely to happen. The decline in Brent crude from $90 to $87 is a confirmation of this expected de-escalation.

However, the market is likely to be weighed by the high US bond yields which can trigger further selling by FIIs. Since large-caps constitute the lion’s share of the AUM of FIIs, the pressure will be on large caps despite their relatively fair valuations, he said.