Equity indices extend gains; Sensex up nearly 300 pts

New Delhi, March 11

India's benchmark equity indices extended their gains from the previous session and increased in the opening session on Friday.

With Friday's rally, indices have managed to rise for four consecutive sessions.

At 9.55 a.m., Sensex was 0.5 per cent or 295 points up at 55,759 points, whereas Nifty was 0.5 per cent or 83 points up 16,678.

Among the stocks, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finserv, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, and Tata Steel were the top five gainers among the Nifty 50 companies; while Tata Consumer, Tata Motors, Nestle India, Maruti Suzuki, and UPL were the top losers, NSE data showed.

"An important takeaway from the sustained FII selling is that it is not impacting the market much. For instance FPIs sold IT equity worth Rs 10,984 crore in February. But this month the IT index has outperformed," said V.K. Vijayakumar, the Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.