Sensex trims initial gains; still up by 154 points

The benchmark BSE Sensex trimmed its initial gains but was still trading up by 154 points in morning trade amid buying in realty, capital goods, power, refinery, banking and metal sector stocks and persistent foreign capital inflows.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 3,634.82 crore on Friday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Investors are hoping that the BJP-led government will be better at getting things done and would be more business-friendly than the Congress-led coalition government, which was in power during the past ten years.
The 30-share Sensex opened higher at 24,340,32 and moved up further to 24,427.10 on strong initial buying.

But, it fell afterwards to 24,238.29 before quoting at 24,276.04 points at 1000 hours, still showing a gain of 154.30 points, or 0.64 per cent, from last weekend's level.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also moved up by 38.25 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 7,241.25 at 1000 hours.

Major gainers were Coal India (5.45 per cent), BHEL (4.58 per cent), Tata Power (4.36 per cent), ONGC (3.39 per cent), SBI (3.20 per cent), SSLT (3.078 per cent) and Larsen (2.88 per cent).
Meanwhile, Asian stocks were trading mostly lower today after data showed a slowdown in China's housing market.
Key benchmark indices in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China fell by 0.04 to 1.09 per cent while indices in Singapore and Japan rose by 0.07 to 0.86 per cent.