Sensex up over 350 points, Nifty above 7,300

MUMBAI: The Sensex began the week on a promising note, snapping two-day losing streak. It gained over 350 points, led by gains in capital goods, oil & gas and power.

The next trigger for the market will be any positive surprise from the Reserve Bank of India at its policy meet tomorrow, say analysts. However, the central bank is likely to keep interest rates unchanged tomorrow, says ET poll.

The Finance Ministry has pitched for keeping up the pressure on fiscal consolidation even as some leading economists have urged the government to adopt a longer time frame to improve its finances as a way of giving a push to the struggling economy that has slumped to decadal lows.

12:19 pm, the Sensex was at 24,575.13; up 357.79 points.

The Nifty was at 7,337.10; up 107.15 points. Earlier in the day, the S&P BSE Midcap Index was up 1.35 per cent and the S&P BSE Smallcap Index moved up 1.45 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, the S&P BSE Capital Goods Index surged 4.43 per cent, the S&P BSE Power Index gained 1.48 per cent and the S&P BSE Oil & gas Index moved 1.21 per cent higher.The S&P BSE FMCG Index was down 0.74 per cent and the S&P BSE FMCG Index was 0.71 per cent lower.

L&T (up 6.22 per cent), Maruti (up 2.09 per cent), BHEL 2.54 % (up 2.09 per cent), Bharti Airte 2.21 % (up 2.02 per cent) and ONGC 3.24 % (up 1.77 per cent) were among the major gainers.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE with 1605 gainers against 732 losers.

The foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 2,977.62 crore while domestic institutional investors were net sellers worth Rs 458.15 crore on Friday aas per the provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.

National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE)