BSE Sensex rises 0.8 pct; L&T, Bharti gain

MUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE Sensex rose 0.8 percent on Wednesday as risk-appetite across Asia was boosted after strong results at U.S. firms Goldman Sachs and Intel bolstered hopes the global economy was healing.

Engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro, energy giant Reliance Industries and top telecoms firm Bharti Airtel led the gains a day after the main index rose 3.4 percent, its best performance in almost 7 weeks.

By 11:06 a.m. (0536 GMT), the 30-share BSE index was up 0.8 percent at 13,961.71 points, with 24 stocks advancing.

But traders said the market undertone was muted and profit-taking might emerge due to uncertainty about the state of the domestic economy, corporate earnings growth and high valuations.

"Yesterday's bounce back cannot be seen as a reversal of the negative trend we have seen recently in the market," Harendra Kumar, head of research at Centrum Broking, said.

Last week, the market fell 9.4 percent -- its biggest weekly fall in eight months -- after the government's budget disappointed investors who were expecting bold economic and financial reforms.

"The market is still finding it difficult to attract liquidity, and in the absence of any domestic triggers, there is still downside risk even though we are up now due to

international markets," Agrawal said.

Traders also said the market was facing technical resistance, with index charts pointing to more downside for the market in the near term.