Mumbai, Dec 27: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex moved up by 131 points in the early trade on sustained buying by funds and general investors.

Sensex today resumed with a positive gap of 108.53 points at 20,301.05 from its previous close of 20,192.52 following the buying in key stocks in the early trade. Similarly, the National Stock Exchange's Index, Nifty went up by 40.10 points to touch 6, 110.85 points. The market opened higher following gains in key indices including ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries. Sectoral indices of BSE were in green. Tata Steel rose for the second consecutive day. Realty, metal and consumer durables stocks were in demand.

IT stocks slipped. Asian markets, which opened before Indian markets, were mixed.

December 2007 derivatives contracts expire today. As per reports, Nifty rollover from December 2007 series to January 2008 series stood at 66 per cent while total market wide rollover stood at 66 per cent, as on Wednesday, December 26' 2007.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.92 per cent to 9,487.21 and Small-Cap index was up 1.65 per cent to 12,546.72 in the early trade. The market breadth was strong. On BSE, 1905 shares advanced as compared to 461 that declined. Whereas, 38 shares were unchanged.

Key stocks like Reliance Industries was at a gain of 0.39 per cent to Rs 2908, ICICI Bank rose 1.03 per cent to Rs 1231.90, while Infosys Technologies fell 1.17 per cent to Rs 1792.40.

HDFC Bank moved up 1.42 per cent to Rs 1727, Tata Steel gained 1.11 per cent to Rs 902.65, Maruti Suzuki rose 0.86 per cent to Rs 1001.75, ITC gained 0.83 per cent to Rs 201.30 and Larsen&Toubro rose 0.71 per cent to Rs 4223.70.

The BSE Consumer Durables index was up 1.50 per cent to 6,320.60, the BSE Metal index was up 0.90 per cent to 19,465.37, and the BSE Realty index was up 0.71 per cent to 12,195.55.

Some of the key Asian indices turned negative after a firm opening today. Key indices in China, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were up between 0.04 per cent to 1.74 per cent. However, key indices in Japan and Hong Kong were down between 0.31 per cent to 0.56 per cent. Whereas, US markets closed almost unchanged on Wednesday.


UNI