The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Wednesday rose over 36 points in opening trade on heavy buying in metal stocks by funds and retail investors amid firm Asian cues.
The 30-share index, which had ended with losses yesterday, recovered by 36.50 points to 16,477.06 in opening trade. The Sensex had lost over 50 points in the previous day’s trade.
The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty also moved up by 12.45 points to 4,894.15.
Brokers said fresh purchases at select heavy-weight stocks by funds and retail investors, after yesterday’s profit-booking, triggered by the firm trends on the other global stock markets mainly influenced the trading sentiment.
Stocks of metals, consumer durables and PSU sectors, were major gainers, supporting the Sensex to trade in black.
Among metal stocks, Sterlite Industries was up by 2.48 per cent to Rs 825.60, NMDC by 8.83 per cent to Rs 472 and Tata Steel by 0.51 per cent to Rs 507.30.
Other gainers were Reliance Industries by 0.21 per cent to Rs 2,056.95, Infosys Technologies by 0.40 per cent to Rs 2,227.15 and Sun Pharma by 0.63 per cent to Rs 1,411.95.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up by 0.50 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei inched up by 0.20 per cent in morning trade today.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average of the US rose 20.03 points yesterday.
