Sensex, Nifty start on a positive note; Ambuja Cements rallies

Benchmark indices opened on a positive on Monday, thanks to strong gains seen by Asian markets, following French election outcome that allayed concerns over a possible disintegration of European Union.

Emmanuel Macron, a pro-EU got elected as French president, as he defeated Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist, who threatened to take France out of the European Union.

At 9.25 am, the BSE Sensex was trading 75.28 points, or 0.25 per cent, higher at 29,934. The index had hit a high of 29,949.82 in early trade.

The Nifty50 dropped 26.30 points, or 0.28 per cent, to 9,333.60. The index breached its previous all-time high of 9,367.15 and hit 9,377.10 level in Friday’s trade.

ICICI Bank climbed 1.79 per cent to Rs 303.90 and was the top Sensex performer. It was followed by Hero MotoCorp, ONGC and Lupin, which rose up to 1.4 per cent.

HDFC was down 0.55 per cent at Rs 1538. {pwer Grid, Adani Ports and SBI fell up to 0.5 per cent.

Most Asian markets were trading up to 2 per cent higher on Monday morning. Japan's Nikkei jumped 1.7 per cent to hit nnearlt one-and-a-half year high after a five-day weekend due to the Golden Week holidays.

On Friday, Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55.47 points, or 0.26 per cent, to 21,006.94, the S&P 500 gained 9.77 points, or 0.41 per cent, to 2,399.29 and the Nasdaq Composite added 25.42 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 6,100.76.

US nonfarm payrolls surged by 211,000 jobs last month after a paltry gain of 79,000 in March, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.4 percent, near a 10-year low.