Markets surge after flat opening; Sensex up 100 pts

Markets turned positive after a flat start helped by gains in HDFC Group shares and index heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys.

At 9:45AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 100 points at 22,444 and 50-share Nifty was up 30 points at 6,690.

The Indian rupee was trading tad higher at Rs 60.04 to the US dollar. On Thursday, the rupee ended strong at Rs 60.06 due to dollar sale by corporate and foreign banks.

Asian markets with the exception of Japan were trading weak although inflation data from China which was inline helped trim early losses. The Nikkei was up 0.6%, Shanghai was down 0.3%, Hang Seng down 0.1% and Straits Times was trading flat with positive bias.

Major US stock indices ended mixed on Thursday with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closing lower, led by losses in the energy and utility sectors. The Nasdaq ended lower for a third straight session, its longest losing streak since early April. The Dow Jones ended up 0.2% at 16,551, S&P 500 lost 0.1% at 1,876 and Nasdaq ended down 0.4% at 4,052.

The BSE Power, Bankex, IT, FMCG and Realty Indices were among the top sectoral gainers.

HDFC and HDFC Bank were up 0.8-1% each contributing the most to the Sensex gains.

Among the index heavyweights Reliance Ind was up 0.4% at Rs 964, Infosys was up 0.3% at 3,072 and ITC was up 0.2%.

Among other shares, Tata Power Company is trading higher by 2% at Rs 77.50 on the BSE after the company said the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal filed by BEST in which it sought to restrain the company from laying its network to provide power supply to consumers in its license area. The stock is the largest gainer among the BSE 30-share Sensex.

The BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.2% and Small-cap index was up 0.3%.

Market breadth was positive with 706 gainers and 494 losers on the BSE.