Sensex pares gain in opening trade

Mumbai, Apr 16: Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex today gained over 260 points in the early trade on positive global cues.

The Benchmark Sensex opened with a positive gap of 135.10 at 16,288.76 from previous close of 16,153.66 on sustained buying interest in select pivotals. Nifty of National Stock Exchange was also trading with a gain of nearly 50 points at 4926 in the mid-morning trading session. The key indices opened higher, extending previous day rally on positive global cues. US markets were positive yesterday as record oil prices lifted energy shares and stronger than expected quarterly results at several US regional banks boosted financial companies.

IT stocks rose for the second consecutive session after IT bellwether Infosys yesterday. All the sectoral indices on BSE were positive.

The BSE Midcap index was up by 1.97 per cent at 6,734.20 and the Smallcap index was up by 1.88 per cent at 8,358.92. The market breadth was positive.

Index frontliners, Infosys Technologies rose 3.79 per cent at Rs 1568, Reliance Industries rose 0.66 per cent at Rs 2606, ICICI Bank was up by 1.50 per cent at Rs 819 and Larsen&Toubro gained 2.15 per cent at Rs 2867.

Reliance Energy up by 3.96 per cent at Rs 1352, Wipro up by 2.91 per cent at Rs 437, Ranbaxy Laboratories rose 2.53 per cent at Rs 493.70 and Satyam Computer up by 2.38 per cent at Rs 462.80, were the other gainers.

As per provisional data, foreign funds sold shares worth a net Rs 56.52 crore yesterday. Domestic funds purchased shares worth a net Rs 13.27 crore on that day.

FIIs were net sellers of Rs 795.13 crore in the futures&options segment on same day. They were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 738.58 crore and bought index options worth Rs 302.18 crore. They were net sellers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 361.57 crore and bought stock options worth Rs 2.84 crore.

UNI