Sensex recovers 53 points in early choppy trade

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex recovered by more than 53 points in early trade on Wednesday on emergence of selective buying by funds and retail investors.

The 30-share sensitive index, which lost nearly 53 points at the outset, staged a comeback to quote 53.15 points higher at 14,307.53 in the first five minutes of trading on funds buying in select heavyweight stocks. It had lost nearly 150 points on Tuesday.

Similarly, the National Stock Exchange index Nifty was up by 21.30 points at 4,125.50 after dipping to 4,100.55.

Stock brokers said apart from selective buying by funds, short-covering by speculators ahead of Thursday's expiry of February contract in the Futures and Option (F&O) segment helped share prices to recover.

The major gainers were Reliance Industries, ONGC, BHEL, ICICI Bank, ITC Ltd, Hindustan Lever, Larsen and Toubro, Ranbaxy Lab, Dr Reddy's Lab, Tata Steel and State Bank of India.