The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex rebounded to trade over 299 points higher in early trade on Friday on increased buying by funds, triggered by a sharp fall in inflation and overnight gains in the US markets. Short-covering by speculators also supported the recovery in stock prices. The bellwether index, which had lost more than 1,000 points in the past two sessions, rose by 299.78 points at 9,836.11 following surge in heavy-weight stocks. The wide-base National Stock Exchange's Nifty, taking cue from the 30-share index, moved up by 90.35 points at 2,938.80. Marketmen said sentiment turned better after inflation dipped from 10.72 per cent to a six-month low of 8.98 per cent for the week to November 1. They said a strong rally in the US markets, where Indian companies' ADRs gained up to 18 per cent, and firming trends at other Asian bourses also buoyed the trading sentiment here. Reliance Industries, gained Rs 23.95, or 2.06 per cent, at Rs 1,186.10, while banking major State Bank of India raised Rs 49.50, or 4.21 per cent, at Rs 1,225.00. Besides, shares of BHEL, L&T, Reliance Infra, RCom, Bharti Airtel, Satyam Computers and Wipro also moved up. On Wednesday, the 30-share barometer had settled the day lower by 303.36 points at 9,536.33 after swinging wildly on alternate bouts of selling and buying. The Stock market was closed yesterday on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti. Meanwhile, US's Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 6.50 per cent higher yesterday, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 3.16 per cent, Singapore Straits Time gained 2.9 per cent and Japan's Nikkei traded higher 4.26 per cent in early session today.

Mumbai, : A sharp drop in inflation increases the possibility of slashing state-set local fuel prices and may prompt the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates sharply, analysts said. The wholesale price index , the most commonly watched guage for inflation , fell to its lowest in nearly six months in early November, well below early August's peak of 12.91 percent. With economic slack likely to increase and the continued easing of global commodity prices, we expect inflation to drop below 4.5 percent by March 2009, much lower than the Reserve Bank's target of 7.0 percent, Sonal Varma at Nomura said. Nomura sees the Reserve Bank cut banks' cash reserve requirements by 100 basis points, repo rate by 150 basis points, and reverse-repo rate by 100 basis points by mid-2009. Morgan Stanley expects the Reserve Bank to announce additional measures, if necessary, to prevent the domestic banking sector, fixed-income mutual funds and non-banking financial companies from suffering any major disruptions.

Mumbai, : The Indian rupee remained steady at its overnight closing level of 49.31/33 a dollar in early trade on Friday, buoyed by firm equity markets. After a biggest single-day fall in over a decade, the domestic currency showed some stability as local stocks turned firm on back of strong global cue. In fairly active trade at the Interbank foreign exchange (forex) market, the domestic currency resumed lower at 49.40/41 a dollar from its previous close of 49.30/31 a dollar and recovered to 49.10 level amid hopes of improved liquidity after inflation fell sharply to 8.98 percent. Forex dealers said the rupee drew support from a bounce in local stocks and some dollar selling by banks . The rupee, however, expected to remain under pressure in the light of slowing economy and sustained capital outflow, they added. The Indian benchmark Sensex was up 121 points or 1.27 percent at 1015 hrs. Asian indices too were strong in early trade

NEW YORK: Citigroup Inc is cutting at least 10,000 jobs in its investment bank and other divisions throughout the world, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and his deputies have instructed managers to slash their budgets for employee compensation by at least 25 percent, the paper said citing the people. "We will continue to carefully manage our head count levels as we re-engineer the company in line with our stated goal and market realities," Citigroup spokeswoman Christina Pretto told the paper. Citigroup announced last month it cut 11,000 jobs in the third quarter, bringing the total number of job cuts in 2008 to 23,000. Citigroup aims to shrink its workforce to about 290,000 employees by next year from 352,000 as of Sept 30, the WSJ said, citing another person. The paper also reported that Citigroup is notifying some credit card customers that their interest rates are being raised by an average of three percentage points. A person familiar with the strategy estimated that the rate increases would apply to less than 20 percent of Citigroup's card portfolio, according to the paper. A Citigroup spokeswoman told Reuters that she had nothing further to add to the company's comments reported by the Journal.