Markets open higher tracking gains in Asia

Markets opened higher on Thursday, amid firm Asian cues, helped by a rebound in bank and capital goods shares.

Markets opened higher on Thursday, amid firm Asian cues, helped by a rebound in financial shares.

At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 186 points at 19,532 and the 50-share Nifty was up 51 points at 5,793.

Overnight, US stocks ended flat as the Federal Reserve gave no hint that a reduction in the pace of its bond-buying program is imminent. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 21.05 points, or 0.14 percent, to end at 15,499.54. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dipped 0.23 of a point, or 0.01 percent, to finish at 1,685.73. However, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 9.90 points, or 0.27 percent, to close at 3,626.37.

Asian shares and commodity prices firme up on Thursday after China's official manufacturing activity data came in better than expected, easing some concerns of a sharp slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. The Shanghai Composite, Nikkei, Straits Times and Hang Seng are up 0.5-1.1% each.

Meanwhile, the rupee continued to remain weak against the US dollar and was at Rs 60.64 in early trades.

BSE Metal index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices on the BSE up 1.2% followed by Oil and Gas, Realty, Power, Bankex, Consumer Durables and Capital Goods indices.

HDFC led the Sensex gainers up 2.6% followed by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank among the financials.

In the oil and gas segment, Reliance Industries was up 0.7% while ONGC was up 1.6%.

Other Sensex gainers include, Bharti Airtel and Infosys among others.

TCS, Wipro and Hero MotoCorp were trading marginally on profit booking after recent gains.


In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.5% and the Small-cap index was up 0.7%.

The market breadth was strong with 592 gainers and 210 losers on the BSE.