Sensex, Nifty rally continues on robust fund inflows, macro data hopes

Mumbai - The stock markets continued to ride the wave of gains early on Friday with the BSE Sensex rising by about 49 points and the Nifty by over 15 points, driven by sustained rally in IT, teck, auto and metal sector stocks amid sustained foreign fund inflows.Besides, optimistic buying by investors ahead of macroeconomic data -- industrial production numbers for March and inflation data for April based on consumer price index (CPI) -- to be announced later in the day, too buoyed sentiments, brokers said.[caption id="attachment_3197814" align="alignleft" width="380"] Reuters[/caption]The BSE 30-share Sensex was quoting 48.76 points, or 0.16 percent higher at 30,299.74 in early trade.In the previous four days, the index had gained 392.18 points and touched an all-time intra-day high of 30,366.43 points in Thursday's trade.Similarly, the broader 50-issue NSE Nifty rose by 15.35 points, or 0.16 percent, to quote at 9,437.75. The gauge in Thursday's trade soared to hit a fresh life-time (intra-day) high of 9,450.65 points on forecast of a normal monsoon this year.Major gainers that kept sentiment high were Infosys, Tata Motors, NTPC, SBI, Hero MotoCorp, Wipro, Coal India, ONGC, TCS and L&T, rising by up to 1.58 percent.In the Asian region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.09 percent, while Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.46 percent in early trade. Japan's Nikkei, however, was down 0.69 percent.The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.11 percent lower in Thursday's trade.