Mumbai, March 10 (IANS) The key Indian equity indices opened on a positive note on Wednesday with the BSE Sensex rising over 400 points during the initial trade.

It surged as much as 404 points to touch an intraday high of 51,430.43 points.

Healthy buying was witnessed in auto and IT stocks.

At 9.28 a.m., Sensex was trading at 51,321.07, higher by 295.59 points or 0.58 per cent from its previous close of 51,025.48.

It opened at 51,404.68 and has so far touched an intraday low of 51,292.93 points.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was trading at 15,193.30, higher by 94.90 points or 0.63 per cent from its previous close.

The top gainers on the Sensex were IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance and Mahindra & Mahindra while the only losers were ONGC, Bharti Airtel and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

--IANS rrb/sn/dpb