After a weak start on Friday, Indian Markets are looking strong at 2.10 pm IST. Market experts are expecting Finance Ministry to announce second Fiscal package. NSE Nifty was up by 28 points at 3062 while BSE Sensex crossed 10,000 mark again.

Among major gainers were DLF, Tata Motors, Reliance Infra, Hindalco, Unitech, SAIL, ITC, ABB, Siemens, NALCO, Tata Steel, Power Grid, Reliance Petro and Cipla.

Reliance Industries was up by Rs 37 at 1292. The stock touched an intraday high and low of Rs 1299 and 1252 respectively. ICICI Bank and Suzlon Energy were also among gainers.

Ranbaxy Labs was among major losers in early trades. The stock has bounced back and was trading at Rs 254 after touching an intraday low of Rs 243.

Seoul  - Shares surged 2.9 per ce

Indian Stock Markets were trading flat at 10.40 am IST. NSE Nifty touched an intraday high and low of 3062 and 3021. BSE Sensex touched a high of 9991 during early trades but slipped to 9863 due to selling pressure in many index stocks.

On first trading day of year 2009, the volumes were lower. Market turnover was lowest since April, 2007.

Among major gainers were SBI, ABB, DLF, HCL Tech, HDFC, Reliance Communications, Reliance Power, GAIL, SAIL, PNB, ITC and ICICI Bank.

Among losers were Satyam, Maruti Suzuki, Wipro, Ranbaxy Labs, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, ACC, Sterlite, ONGC, M&M, Tata Power and Grasim.

Indian Stock Markets were trading marginally lower on second trading day of new year. At 10.16 am, NSE Nifty was down by 11 points at 3022. BSE Sensex was down by nearly 35 points at 9868.

The year 2009 started on a positive note with the benchmark Sensex gaining by over 73 points during the opening trade on hopes of further decline in the inflationary figures and firming trends on the worldwide markets.

The Bombay Stock Exchange barometer, which lost 68.85 points on the last session of 2008, gained 73.24 points at 9,720.55 points in the opening trade with all the sectoral indices, led by metal consumer durables and realty, trading in the positive zone.

The Midcap barometer has moved up by 1.5%, while the Smallcap index has came up by 1.76%.

New York - US stocks finished the year with gains on Wednesday as weekly unemployment figures dropped, but Wall Street still ended the year with its steepest slide since the Great Depression.

Unemployment claims fell by 94,000 this week, the lowest level in two months, Bloomberg financial news reported.