Sensex trims initial gains, still up by 40 pts

Shares of organised retailers rose ahead of voting in Lok Sabha today on a motion moved by the Opposition to disallow FDI in multi-brand retail and on FEMA.

The BSE benchmark sensex resumed higher at 19,397.98 and firmed up further to a high of 19,463.25 on strong buying in select counters.

However, it declined afterwards to 19,378.88 due to selling in IT sector before quoting at 19,388.23 at 1030hrs, still showing a gain of 40.11 points of 0.21 per cent from its last close.

The NSE-50 share Nifty also moved up by 8.50 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 5,897.25 at 1030 hrs.

Major gainers were Sterlite Ind (2.66 per cent), Tata Steel (2.17 per cent), Tata Motors (2.06 per cent), Hindalco Ind (1.92 per cent) and HDFC Bank (1.08 per cent).

FIIs bought shares worth a net Rs 539.95 crs yesterday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

Chinese stocks jumped to lead gains for Asia markets in the earlier trade with the Shanghai bourse rallying off a four-year low as investors picked up financial and property stocks. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite index was up 3.01 per cent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 1.35 per cent. Key benchmark indices in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Taiwan were up 0.05 per cent to 0.6 per cent.