After displaying a distressing performance in the last couple of trading sessions, the Indian equity markets managed to pull up a sparkling performance by gaining over half a per cent on Tuesday, courtesy short covering in the beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks. Sentiments remained up-beat after Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley dismissed the slowdown concerns, and said that higher tax mop up indicates uptick in economic activity. Meanwhile, third quarter earnings’  season has kicked off on Tuesday, with fairly upbeat numbers from IndusInd Bank. The private lender has reported a better-than-expected 29 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 750.64 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 compared with Rs 581.02 crore reported for the corresponding quarter last year. At the end of the day, the NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty, surged over half a per cent to settle above the crucial 8,250 support level, while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index-Sensex accumulated around one hundred and fifty points and closed just below the psychological 26,900 mark. Moreover, broader markets managed a touch better than the larger peers today as the BSE’s midcap and smallcap indices settled with gains of 0.80 per cent and 0.70 per cent respectively. European markets finished higher on Tuesday with shares in London leading the region. The FTSE 100 was up 0.52 per cent; while Germany’s DAX was up 0.17 per cent and France’s CAC 40 was up 0.01 per cent.  U.S. stocks ended in the mix on Tuesday as Nasdaq closed at record high for a fourth session while the Dow Jones Industrial Average push towards 20,000, and  was again thwarted. The S&P 500 finished mostly unchanged at 2,268 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 31 points to close at 19,855. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 20 points to end at 5,551.Asian stocks opened higher following a surge in metal stocks and a drop in crude oil prices to a one month low. Hang Seng gained 0.65 per cent to 22,892.73, Nikkei 225 is trading at 19,380 with gains of 79 points and Shanghai Composite is trading at 3,165.37 with gains of 4 points.At 7:48 am, SGX Nifty index has gained 32 points to 8,330, indicating a positive start for Indian equities.