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Benchmark share indices opened higher on Thursday amid firm cues from Asia and overnight gains on Wall Street with rate sensitive shares leading the gains. However, the markets are likely to remain range bound ahead of the expiry of November derivative contracts today.
At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 140 points at 20,560 and the 50-share Nifty was up 42 points at 6,099.
The Indian rupee was trading weak against the US dollar at 62.26 against the previous close of 62.15
Asian markets were trading higher in early trades with Japan's Nikkei leading the gains in the continent after the yen eased agains the US dollar on the back of encouraging economic data from the US. Japan's Nikkei was up 1.3%. Singapore's Straits Times was up 0.8% while Shanghai COmposite gained 0.4% and Hang Seng rose 0.7%.
The Dow Jones and S&P 500 surged on Wednesday to end at fresh new highs while the tech-laden Nasdaq ended at a 13-year high on the back of encouraging economic data and better-than-expected earnings from personal computer major Hewlett-Packard.
Jobless claims for unemployment benefits last week was lower-than-expected and the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on consumer sentiment index rose better-than-expected to 75.1 in November compared with October's reading of 73.2.
The Dow Jones Industrial average ended up 24 points, or 0.1%, to end at 16,097.33. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 4 points, or 0.2% at 1,807.23. The tech laden Nasdaq Composite Index rose 27 points or 0.7% at 4,044.75.
Key European shares ended higher on Wednesday on higher-than-expected earnings, coalition deal between conservatives and social democrats and encouraging consumer sentiment data from Germany. The CAC-40 ended up 15 points up at 4,293.06, the DAX rose 61 points or 0.7% to end at 9,351.13, while the FTSE-100 ended up 13 points or 0.2% at 6,649.47.
The BSE Realty index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices on the BSE up 1.2% followed by Bankex, Auto, Healthcare, Capital Goods, Metal and Power indices up 0.6-1% each.
Index heavyweights Reliance Industries was up 1% at Rs 846 and ITC surged 0.7% at Rs 316 contributing the most to the gains on the Sensex.
In the banking space, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and SBI were up 0.5-1.1% each.
Other gainers include, Tata Motors, TCS and engineering major L&T.
Meanwhile, Infosys and Jindal Steel were marginally down in early trades.
The broader market was also marginally up with the BSE Mid-cap index up 0.5% and the Small-cap index up 0.4%.
Market breadth was positive with 629 gainers and 208 losers on the BSE.
