Sensex soars on global cues in opening trade

Short-covering of bets, today being the last session of May expiry in the derivatives segment, kept the overall tempo up.

Optimistic buying by participants ahead of GDP data scheduled to be released later today too buoyed trading sentiments, brokers said.

The 30-share index, which had lost 259.37 points in the previous two sessions, recovered by 246.06 points, or 0.70 per cent, at 35,152.17.

The NSE Nifty too was trading higher by 61.75 points, or 0.58 per cent, at 10,676.10.

Meanwhile, the Met department yesterday said the entire country is likely to get normal monsoon this year, except the east and northeast India, which is likely to witness "below normal" rainfall.

Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 492.46 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net of Rs 1,286.91 crore yesterday, provisional data showed.

Major gainers were Coal India, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, HUL, ONGC, Tata Steel, L&T, Kotak Bank, HDFC Ltd, NTPC, Wipro, RIL, Infosys and M&M, with gains of up to 2.81 per cent.

However, shares of the country's largest private lender ICICI Bank plunged 1.49 per cent after the bank ordered an independent probe into allegations against its MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar's dealing with certain borrowers.

Brokers said continued pumping of funds by DIIs and a firming trend at over Asian bourses, tracking recoveries in the US and Europe as fears of a political crisis in Italy abated, spurred fresh round of buying on the domestic bourses.

Globally, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.95 per cent, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.60 per cent while Shanghai Composite index rallied 1.20 per cent in early trade today.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 1.26 per cent higher yesterday.