Sensex trims some early gains; up 78 pts in late morning deals

Erasing some of the early gains, the BSE benchmark Sensex was trading higher by 78 points in late morning deals on buying mainly in FMCG, power, IT and consumer durable sectors, following government's decision to relax FDI rules for a number of sectors.
Telecom stocks rose after the government announced increase in FDI ceiling in the telecom services sector to 100 per cent from 74 per cent, with Idea Cellular hitting record high and Reliance Communications hitting 52-week high.
Reliance Communications rose 2.43 per cent to Rs 149.45 after striking 52-week high of Rs 151.25 in intraday trade today. Bharti Airtel (up 1.56 per cent), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 6.5 per cent) and MTNL (up 2.38 per cent).

Gainers from other sectors were Dr Reddy's Lab 1.97 per cent followed by TCS 1.52 per cent, ITC 1.46 per cent, BHEL 1.45 per cent, M&M 1.45 per cent, Tata Power 1.40 per cent, NTPC 1.22 per cent and RIL 1.10 per cent.
The BSE benchmark Sensex resumed higher at 19,928.95 and firmed up further to 19,970.02. But, it declined afterwards to 19,915.11 before quoting at 19,929.14 at 1030hrs, still showing a gain of 77.91 points of 0.39 per cent from its last close.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also moved up by 19.90 points or 0.33 per cent to 5,975.15 at 1030hrs.

Asian shares were mostly lower in their early trade on caution as two-day congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke begins today. Key benchmark indices in China, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore were down 0.34 per cent to 0.58 per cent while indices in Hong Kong, South Korea and Indonesia were up 0.23 per cent to 0.81 per cent.