Sensex soars 180 pts as May F&O series opens strong

The Sensex rallied about 180 points to 34,893.20 in early session today, maintaining its positive form for the second straight day as the May derivatives series took off on a strong footing amid encouraging earnings and positive Asian cues.

Unabated buying by domestic institutional fulled the uptrend, brokers said.

The 30-share Sensex, which gained 212.33 points in the previous session, added 179.60 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 34,893.20.

All sectoral indices of BSE led by realty, banking and metal were in the positive zone, rising by up to 1.07 per cent.

The NSE Nifty jumped 60 points, or 0.56 per cent, to 10,677.80.

Shares of Reliance Industries and Maruti Suzuki were higher by 2.66 per cent and 1.28 per cent ahead of earnings, to be announced later in the day.

Other gainers include Axis Bank, Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, Adani Bank, Tata Steel, L&T, Tata Motors, SBI, Dr Reddy's, sun Pharma and Bajaj Auto, rising up to 3.66 per cent.

Brokers said investors were busy in creating new positions following the beginning of the May futures and options (F&O) series that led to the rally in the market.

Moreover, encouraging quarterly corporate earnings so far and data showing that domestic institutional investors continued their buying activity, buoyed sentiment.

A firming trend in the rest of Asia following overnight positive leads from the Wall Street on solid earnings and a rebound in technology stocks as the US bond yields pulled back, accelerated buying activity, they added.

Meanwhile, on a net basis, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 684.11 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,056.34 crore yesterday, provisional data showed.

Japan's Nikkei quoted 0.42 per cent higher while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.31 per cent in the early part but China's Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.22 per cent.

The US market ended 0.99 per cent higher yesterday.