Day before Karnataka polls' result, Sensex opens in green, Nifty reaches beyond 10,800 mark

Just a day before Karnataka polls result, key indices on Monday opened in green. The benchmark BSE Sensex was trading at 35,591.51 mark and was up by 57.25 points while Nifty was tradung beyond 10,800 mark. Market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned positive. On the BSE, 770 stocks rallied, 661 stocks declined, while 55 stocks remained unchanged.

After the Karnataka polls voting, as widely expected the prices of petrol rallied after April 24. state-owned Oil companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL kept petrol rates unchanged for more than three weeks now in various state capitals even as global crude oil prices surged to multi-year highs. Due to which shares of these firms witnessed a rise in indices.

OMCs had been mandated for daily revision in fuel prices since June 2017 in tandem with rise or fall in Brent crude price.

The rupee strengthened by 12 paise to 67.21 against the dollar in early trade today on fresh selling of the US currency by exporters and banks amid higher opening in the domestic equity market.

Forex dealers attributed the rise in the rupee to weakness of the dollar against other currencies overseas.However, industrial output growing by 4.4 per cent in March, the slowest in five months, capped the rupee gains, they added.

On Friday, the rupee had settled almost flat at 67.33 against the US currency in highly volatile trade amid weak dollar cues.

Asian shares shot up to near two-month highs on Monday on signs the United States and China were toning down their trade war rhetoric, while Malaysian Ringgit hit a four-month trough in the first onshore trade since a shock election result last week.

Veteran Mahathir Mohamad came out of political retirement to lead the opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) to a stunning victory over a ruling party he had once led, defeating prime minister Najib Razak, a former protege he had accused of corruption.

Some investors were concerned that populist promises such as repealing an unpopular goods and services tax and restoring a petrol subsidy could undermine the country's economic prospects.

In response, the Malaysian Ringgit fell to a four-month low of 3.982 per dollar at open, while the benchmark share index dropped as much as 2.7 percent at open before bouncing into positive territory.

Bombay Stock Exchange - BSE

National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE)