Mumbai, Sep 9 : The Indian benchmark indices opened higher on Tuesday, with Nifty IT index leading the rally with 1.7 per cent surge in the early trade.

At 9.23 am, Sensex was up 355 points or 0.44 per cent, at 81,142 and Nifty was up 99 points or 0.40 per cent, at 24,873.

The broadcap indices stayed flat, as Nifty Midcap 100 inched up by 0.05 per cent, and the Nifty Small cap 100 dipped 0.01 per cent.

Nifty IT advanced on the back of strong gains by Infosys (up 3.35 per cent) as the company had announced that it will consider a buyback of shares along with its results next month. IT company Wipro also advanced 2.36 per cent.

Tech Mahindra, TCS, Bajaj Finserv were other major gainers in the Nifty pack. Major losers were Titan Company, Shriram Finance, ICICI Bank, Tata Consumer and Tata Motors.

Among sectoral indices, apart from Nifty IT, the top gainer, Nifty pharma (up 0.47 per cent) and Nifty Auto (up 0.21 per cent) were in green. Many other indices made marginal losses.

Analysts said that Nifty index had formed a small red candle with a long upper shadow on the daily chart, highlighting consolidation and volatility.

"While buying interest is visible at lower levels, the 24,900'25,000 zones remains a stiff hurdle. Support is placed at 24,620, and as long as Nifty trades below 25,000, some consolidation or mild weakness may persist," they noted.

"Upside momentum vanished on test of 24,870, which we had pencilled in as a critical pivot yesterday. Though the turn lower thereof was abrupt and steep, oscillators remain accommodative towards further upsides. We will look for a close beyond the 24,730-870 for further clarity," said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited.

The US markets ended in the green zone overnight as the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.25 per cent, while the Nasdaq advanced by 0.45 per cent and the S&P 500 gained 0.21 per cent.

In the US, investors are now awaiting two key inflation reports that could determine what Federal Reserve policymakers will do at their meeting next week.

The Asian markets traded mixed in the morning session. China's Shanghai index declined 0.35 per cent, and Shenzhen lost 1 per cent. Japan's Nikkei was up 0.2 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.82 per cent. South Korea's Kospi inched up 1.06 per cent.

On Friday, foreign investors (FIIs/FPIs) turned net sellers with outflows worth Rs 2,170 crore of Indian equities, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 3,014 crore.

/IANS