Sensex up 75 pts in morning trade on strong FII buying

MUMBAI: The BSE benchmark Sensex firmed up by 75 points in early trade on Monday on persistent buying in select counters, mainly IT and tech, on the back of sustained capital inflows by foreign funds, coupled with higher Asian cues.

The BSE benchmark Sensex resumed higher at 19,473.93 and shot up further to 19,566.29 before quoting at 19,495.75 at 1015 hours, showing a net gain of 75.36 points, or 0.39 per cent, from last weekend's level.

The NSE 50-share Nifty also firmed up by 14.60 points, or 0.25 per cent, to quote at 5,840.65 at 1015 hours.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) was trading firm. Wipro surged by 1.50 per cent after the company said it will acquire the oil and gas information technology practice of US-based Science Applications International Corporation ( SAIC).

Other gainers were Hero Honda (1.90 per cent), Infosys Tech (1.51 per cent), M&M (1.51 per cent), HDFC Bank (1.30 per cent), Jindalsteel (1.29 per cent) and TCS (1.21 per cent).

As per provisional figures, foreign funds bought shares worth Rs 415.28 crore last Friday. FII inflow totaled Rs 8,963.42 crore in the nine trading sessions from March 22 to April 1.

Most Asian stocks rose in early trade after a report showed US jobs grew faster than forecast. The key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore were up by between 0.08 per cent and 1.11 per cent. However, South Korea's Seoul Composite slipped by 0.49 per cent. The Chinese market is closed today for a local holiday.

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