Sensex up nearly 100 points; financial shares gain

Markets opened higher, tracking firm Asian cues, led by financials and information technology shares.

At 9:30M, the 30-share Sensex was up 95 points at 28,357 and the 50-share Nifty was up 30 points at 8,581.

Further, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 433.72 crore on Monday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

The Sensex needs to hold above 28,100 levels to continue the upswing towards 28,350 then 28,500 levels. On the downside, support exists at 28,000 levels then 27,850 levels, a technical analyst with Anand rathi said in a note.

Asian markets are trading higher. Nikkei has extended gains from yesterday and is trading higher by around 1.5%. Chinese stocks have rebounded from yesterday's huge slump ahead of the release of data on Chinese GDP growth for the fourth quarter. Data on Tuesday is expected to show China's economy grew 7.2% in the October-December quarter from a year earlier, a Reuters poll showed. Shanghai Composite index has gained over 1% while Hang Seng index has gained around 0.6%.

US markets were closed yesterday on account of Martin Luther's day. Overnight, European shares had fared better on Monday ahead of the  European Central Bank meet this week on expectations that it would extend asset purchases to euro zone sovereign bonds, giving it greater scope to expand its balance sheet. FTSE 100 index closed 0.5% higher while French CAC 40 and German Dax indices closed higher by 0.3% and 0.7% each.

Except for the FMCG index all other sectoral indices on the BSE were in the green led by Consumer Durables and Power indices.

Index heavyweights ITC and Infosys contributed the most to the gains on the Sensex in early trades.

Financial shares extended gains with mortgage lender HDFC up 0.7% while banks such as SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were up 0.4-0.7% each.

IT shares also firmed up with TCS up 0.5% and Wipro extending gains post robust third quarter earnings.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up over 0.5% each.

Market breadth was strong with 1,031 gainers and 329 losers on the BSE.