INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: Led by gains in IT stocks and index heavyweight RIL, benchmark indices started Thursday's session on a positive note shrugging
Markets initially witnessed a flat start but soon took off riding on a pre-poll rally
The March futures and options series will expire today
Nifty futures rollover stood till Wednesday stood at 59 per cent against 52 per cent rollovers seen in the last three series
Market-wide rollovers stood at 67 per cent.
The rupee on Thursday opened 22 paise down at 69.10 against the US dollar due to some buying in
American currency by banks and importers helping IT stocks log gains
At around 9:30 am, BSE sensex was up 108 points, or 0.28 per cent at 38,241
Meanwhile, its Nifty counterpart rose 30 points or 0.26 per cent to trade at 11,475
In the Sensex pack, 15 stocks traded in the green while the rest in the red
HCL Tech wsa the biggest gainer, up over 3 per cent, followed by Infosys, YES bank, TCS, Vedanta and Bajaj Finance which rose around 1%,
On the loser-board, ONGC was leading, falling 2.15 per cent
Among other losers were -- Bharti Airtel, Indusind, Powergrid, MM and Coal India.
Infosys was the biggest contributor while HDFC Bank was
the top drag.
In the Nifty pack, 29 stocks advanced while 21 declined.
On the BSE sectoral front, barring telecom, metal and energy all
other sectors were upbeat
Realty, IT and Teck surged the most rising 1.96 per cent, 1.79 per cent and 1.52 percent, respectively.
Furthermore, BSE Midcap and BSE
Smallcap continued their ascend, climbing 0.45 per cent and 0.59 per cent, respectively.
On the global front, markets reeled from the fears
Bond yields spiralled to 15-month lows at 2.35 per cent as central bank attempts to calm frayed nerves went down the drain
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.3 per cent, with South Korea down 0.7 per cent and Shanghai blue chips
slipping 0.3 per cent, Reuters reported
