Sensex opens 100 points up, Nifty above 10,500 mark

The benchmark BSE Sensex and Nifty opened in green on Monday tracking global cues. Sensex was up 137 points to trade at 34,266.85 while Nifty was trading above 10,500 mark.

Monday's early trade gains were mostly by some buying witnessed in the metals, auto, realty and energy sectors - up between 0.8 per cent and 1.5 per cent.

On the nifty index, the major gainers were, Tata Steel, UPL, Vedanta, Hindalco and Tata Motors.

However, Asian share markets were in a cautious mood on Monday as investors braced for an event-packed week headlined by US inflation data and the first House testimony by the new head of the Federal Reserve.

Sentiment was fragile with the dollar losing early gains and safe-haven bonds firming as E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 turned 0.1 percent lower.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan nudged up 0.3 percent, but bourses across the region were mixed.

Japan's Nikkei led with an increase of 0.7 percent, pulling back from early gains of 1.2 percent, but Chinese blue chips slipped 0.5 percent.

The dollar steadied on Monday, with investors looking to Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell's first congressional testimony for hints on the future pace of U.S. monetary tightening.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was unchanged at 89.879. It had gained nearly 0.9 percent last week and pulled away from a three-year low near 88.25 set on Feb. 16.

A view that the dollar's selloff had been overdone, and minutes from the Fed's January rate-setting meeting that offered a relatively upbeat tone had helped give the dollar a lift last week.

Speculators' net short dollar bets fell in the week to Feb. 20, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday, as investors priced in more interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve.

Bombay Stock Exchange - BSE