After belling the day on a strong note at 8,956.30, up 92.48 points, the Sensex keep on extending its gains on the back of steady buying in metal, banking and realty stocks.

Buying interest has emerged across the board with realty, metal and banking stocks leading the gains.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index gained 2.63% and 2.16% respectively.

After rallying for three successive days, the Sensex, on Tuesday (Mar 17), ended the day on a negative note followed by banking, IT and oil & gas stocks.

Among the BSE Sectoral indices BSE IT index remained the top loser, the index declined 2%. Among the other major losers were BSE Bankex index (down 1.6%), BSE Oil & Gas index  (down 1.3%) and BSE Teck index (down 1.2%).

After opening at 8,942.01, down 1.53 points, BSE Sensex remained lackluster all through the day. It also hit a high of 9,024.12.

New York  - US stocks rose Tuesday as the construction of new homes in the United States unexpectedly surged in February and investors speculated about Federal Reserve efforts to bolster the economy.

Privately owned housing starts in February were 583,000 at an annual rate, up 22 per cent from January but still down 47.3 per cent from the same month in 2008, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected a further monthly decline to 450,000 last month, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

Markets have started off on a flat note with a negative bias because of weak mixed signals from the US and the Asian markets.

Later, Sensex went up into the positive zone and again dropped into the pessimistic zone to trade on a flat note.

With positive bias, second rung stocks also traded on a flat note.

While buying is seen in realty and metal stocks, selling pressure has emerged in IT counters.

Tokyo  - Tokyo stocks on Tuesday extended their winning streak into a third day on optimism that government stimulus measures and central bank policies would pump life into the world's second-largest economy.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average jumped 114.67 points, or 1.49 per cent, to 7,818.82.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also up 10.9 points, or 1.47 per cent, at 752.59.