It has been a gap-up opening for the markets. This is on expected lines, given that the Dow rallied more than 2% and the Asian markets are all in the green. The Sensex is quoting at 17059, higher by 153 points and the Nifty is at 5124, up 46 points in early trades. The midcap index is up 0.8% a R 6924 and the smallcap index is up 0.9% at 8677.
Wall Street rallied on better than expected economic data from China and Australia and in-line to slightly better than expected weekly jobs data in the US. The Dow was up 273 points or 2.76% at 10172 and the Nasdaq was up 59 points or 2.77% at 2218.71. And the Asian markets have added anywhere between 1% and 2% each this morning.
The leading gainers on the Sensex are DLF (stronger by 1.6% at Rs 267), M&M (higher by 1.5% at Rs 601) and HDFC (up 1.5% at Rs 2792). HDFC Bank, RIL and Sterlite are the other significant gainers.
However, telecom stocks are seeing some profit-booking after the gains in the past couple of trading sessions. Bharti Airtel, which added more than 8% in the past two days alone, has weakened by 1.1% at Rs 282 and RCom has lost 0.2% at Rs 173.
The market breadth is positive. Out of 1598 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1285 advancing stocks as against 282 declines.