Strong start in stock market; Sensex rises 300 points, Nifty crosses 24200

New Delhi|Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty rose in early trade on Tuesday due to sustained investment by domestic institutional investors and a rise in US markets as well as buying at lower levels. BSE Sensex rose 324.83 points to 79,820.98 in early trade. Whereas NSE’s Nifty rose by 100.7 points to reach 24,242 points. Of the 30 Sensex stocks, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Titan, Reliance Industries and Power Grid had the highest gains.

Maruti, HDFC Bank, Asian Paints and IndusInd Bank were among the major lagging stocks. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 2,306.88 crore on Monday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 2,026.63 crore, according to exchange data.

VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Two strong factors are at work in this integrated market”. First, continued selling by FIIs has benefited the bears and pulled the market downwards. Second, the sustained purchases being made by DIIs have supported the market and prevented market decline. How the market trend will be in the coming days will depend on the relative strength of these two factors

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading in negative territory. Wall Street boomed on Monday. “The US stock markets are in a celebratory mood, with the S&P 500 crossing the 6,000 mark and the Dow crossing 44,000″, said Prashant Taapsee, senior vice president (research), Mehta Equities Ltd. It’s all happening because of Donald Trump’s election victory, the Fed’s interest rate cuts and strong consumer sentiment”

Brent crude, the global oil standard, fell 0.15 percent to $71.72 a barrel. On Monday, the BSE index had closed at 79,496.15 points, with a slight gain of 9.83 points, or 0.01 percent. Nifty had closed at 24,141.30 points with a slight fall of 6.90 points or 0.03 percent.