Sensex up over 100 pts; ONGC, Bhel gain

It’s a good start for markets after two consecutive days of losses.

The market has opened November series expiry on a strong note. The Sensex is up 126.39 points at 20546.65, and the Nifty is up 37.45 points at 6094.55.

Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Tata Power and BHEL are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Hero Motocorp and Jindal Steel.

[caption id=“attachment_1223637” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Representational Image. Reuters.[/caption]

Indian rupee fell 25 paise in early trade to 62.39 against the US dollar on Thursday. It closed at 62.14 per dollar in previous session.

Himanshu Arora of Religare feels the rupee is expected to trade higher against a dollar in today’s session as some foreign banks have been seen selling dollars which may continue today as well. Moreover, weakness in dollar index and strength in domestic equities amid expiry session is also likely to support rupee, he adds.

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According to Arora, the range for the day is seen between 61.75-62.40/USD.

US markets gained yesterday, with a positive reading on consumer confidence spreading cheer just before the holiday-shopping season.

Asian shares held steady early on Thursday, although Japanese stocks look set to head back towards a 5-1/2 year peak reached in May after the yen fell sharply on the back of relatively positive US economic data.

Stocks in news:

Oil India, Petronet LNG, RIL, BPCL and ONGC are all up more than 1 percent with the BSE oil & gas index among the best performing sectoral.

Wockhardt is down 0.96 percent after a second plant operated by the generic drugmaker was hit by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “import alert”, effectively a ban.

Jet Airways is up 1.26 percent. Competition Commission has held on to its observation about Etihad gaining joint control in Jet Airways and “significant” rights to appoint directors with a 24 per cent stake purchase, while rejecting a plea to “rectify” its order that approved the deal earlier this month.

Maruti Suzuki is up 0.43 percent. The company announced it will recall 1,492 units of Ertiga, Swift, Dzire and A-Star models produced in October this year to rectify a possible problem with the steering column.