Mumbai: Despite a muted trend in Asian markets, the key Indian equity market indices on Thursday opened higher as the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections began with voting in 95 seats in the morning.
The Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE, which had closed at 39,275.64 points on Tuesday, opened higher at 39,420.04 points. The markets remained closed on Wednesday on account of Mahavir Jayanti.
Minutes into trading, it was quoting at 39,407.17 points, up by 131.53 points, or 0.33 percent.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broader Nifty 50 was quoting at 11,821.80 points, up by 34.65 points or 0.29 percent.
As many as 34 stocks advanced in the Nifty 50 index while 16 stocks declined. In BSE Sensex, 20 stocks including those of Reliance and Tata Motors were trading in the green while 10 stocks including NTPC, ITC were trading in red at 9.21 a.m.
Jet Airways shares were down 9.99 percent in early trading season after the carrier announced to temporarily suspend all flight operations from Wednesday night as it failed to secure interim funding of Rs 400 crore for maintaining bare minimum operations.
On Thursday, Asian indices were showing mostly a negative trend.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was quoting in red, down by 0.79 percent, while Hang Seng was down by 0.59 percent, South Korea’s Kospi was also down by 1.06 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite was also quoting in red, down by 0.07 percent.
Overnight, Nasdaq closed in red, down by 0.05 percent, while FTSE 100 was up marginally by 0.02 percent at the closing on Wednesday.
[source_without_link]IANS[/source_without_link]