By IANS
Mumbai : The Indian stock markets opened higher Monday on the back of strong cues from US markets. Early trades saw buying across sectors.
Just after the opening bell, the benchmark sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was up 270 points at 19,971.
The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was up by 71 points at 5,968.
Asian markets mostly rose Monday, boosted by a high close on Wall Street.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 0.43 percent or 117.39 points at 27,731.82, Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.29 percent or 43.21 points at 15,197.82, Taiwan’s Taiwan Weighted rose 0.29 percent or 25.83 points at 8,790.65, Singapore’s Straits Times was up 0.44 percent or 15.01 points at 3,455.97, and South Korea’s Seoul Composite was flat at 1,925.39.
US indices staged a late rally to finish higher on Friday compared to the previous day’s close. Investors closely eyed corporate earnings and attempted to gauge the Federal Reserve’s next step.
The Dow Jones rose to 13,177 points, up 67 points, while the Nasdaq moved up by 19 points to close at 2,637.
Most Indian American depository receipts (ADRs) had a field day on the US bourses. VSNL was the major gainer and surged over 8 percent while MTNL, Wipro, Dr Reddy’s, Tata Motors, Infosys, Satyam and HDFC Bank gained over 1-6 percent each.
International crude oil prices gained marginally, with the Nymex light crude oil for December delivery moved up by $1.67 to close at $95.10 per barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for December series slipped by 30 cents to settle at $787 a troy ounce.
Top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco at Rs.209.90, up by 3.02 percent, ACC at Rs.1,069 surged 2.87 percent and NTPC at Rs.271.45 moved up 2.67 percent.
Top losers on the Sensex were BPCL at Rs.422.25 down by 2.75 percent, TCS at Rs.976.90 down 0.61 percent and Hero Honda at Rs.694 sliding down 0.57 percent.
Most active shares on the NSE were Essar Oil at Rs.217.80 with 8,844,602 shares, Power Grid Corp at Rs.164.10 with 7,829,688 shares and Reliance Petroleum at Rs.216.20 with 3,182,207 shares.