Sensex, Nifty trade firm in early trade

New Delhi: Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty climbed in early trade on Tuesday helped by value buying at lower levels along with sustained investment by domestic institutional investors and a rally in the US markets.

The BSE benchmark Sensex climbed 324.83 points to 79,820.98 in early trade. The NSE Nifty went up by 100.7 points to 24,242.

From the 30-share Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Titan, Reliance Industries and Power Grid were the biggest gainers.

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Maruti, HDFC Bank, Asian Paints and IndusInd Bank were among the major laggards.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 2,306.88 crore on Monday, while Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) bought Rs 2,026.63 crore shares, according to exchange data.

"Two strong factors have been at play in this consolidating market. One, the relentless selling by FIIs has been favouring the bears and pulling the market down. Two, the sustained buying by DIIs has been supporting the market preventing a crash in the market. How the market will trend in the coming days will depend on the relative strength of these two factors," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were quoting in the negative territory.

Wall Street ended higher on Monday.

"The US stock markets are in celebration mode, with the S&P 500 crossing the 6,000 milestone and the Dow surging past 44,000, fuelled by optimism around Donald Trump's election win, the Fed's rate cut, and strong consumer sentiment," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dipped 0.15 percent to USD 71.72 a barrel.

After gyrating between highs and lows, the BSE benchmark eked out a marginal gain of 9.83 points or 0.01 percent to settle at 79,496.15 on Monday. The Nifty dipped marginally by 6.90 points or 0.03 percent to 24,141.30.

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