sensex nifty open higher tracking positive sentiment asian markets nifty bank offers valuation comfort

Indian equities cheering global mood started higher on the weekly expiry day. At the start, Sensex was up 0.01 per cent or 7.06 at 85,176.93, while the Nifty was up at 26,012.4, up 0.03 per cent or 8.25 points.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, "There are no immediate near-term triggers that can take the market sharply up or down. Up moves may attract selling by FIIs who are likely to move some more money to China and Hong Kong since these markets are cheap and are witnessing an uptrend now. But FII selling is unlikely to push the market down significantly since the ample domestic liquidity can easily absorb such selling. A range-bound market is the near-term scenario and, therefore, the real action will be stock-specific.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks advanced with the Japan's Nikkei up a sharp over 2 per cent. The market sentiment remained upbeat over stimulus measures in China and tech stocks logged sharp gains tracking strong earnings reported by US peer Micron.