Sensex crosses 9K level, up 178 pts in early trade

The benchmark Sensex on Wednesday surged by over 178 points to cross the psychological 9,000 mark in the early trade on fresh buying by funds in blue-chips stocks following firming global trend.
    
The Bombay Stock Exchange barometer moved up by 178.20 points, or 2.01 per cent, to 9,042.02 points, with stocks of realty, banking and metals rising up to 3.38 per cent.
    
The wide-based National Stock Exchange's Nifty rose by 53.05 points, or 1.90 per cent, to 2,810.50 points.
    
Marketmen said sentiments turned bullish on the domestic bourses after a strong overnight rally in the US stocks on reports of better than expected US housing data for February.
    
On Tuesday night, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 178.73 points, or 2.48 per cent to close at 7,395.70 points.
    
Meanwhile, among Asian markets, Hong Kong share prices surged by 1.4 per cent to 13,052.95.

The BSE Realty index shot up by 2.79 per cent to 1,512.56 points after stocks of DLF Ltd gained 2.45 per cent to Rs 163, Unitech Ltd by 2.12 per cent to Rs 26.50, Ansal Infra by 1.90 per cent to Rs 24.15 and India Bull Real Estate by 2.60 per cent to Rs 90.75.
    
Among banking stocks, State Bank of India rose by 1.61 per cent to Rs 964.90, ICICI Bank by 2.85 per cent to Rs 333.40, HDFC Bank by 1.65 per cent to Rs 839 and Yes Bank by 4.04 per cent to Rs 46.30.
    
Besides, Reliance Industries up by 2.71 per cent to Rs 1,335, Tata Steel by 3.05 per cent to Rs 173.80 and Sterlite Industries by 4.08 per cent to Rs 304.50.