Markets: Sensex up 76.94 points, Nifty holds 12,094.70 in the afternoon session

Domestic Stock Markets indices on Monday erased early gains to trade marginally higher in the first hour of trade.

At 2 PM Sensex was trading 76.94 points higher at 41,086.65 and Nifty traded 7.75 points lower at 12,094.70. 

Earlier in the day, Sensex hit a new record high of 41,185.03 points. 

At 9:17 am, the Sensex was up 117.03 points, or 0.29%, at 41,126.74. Nifty too was trading higher by 35.80 points to 12,122.50.

Among stocks, those which lost were Adani Ports, Sun Pharma, IndianOil Corporation, JSW Steel and Yes Bank. However, IT stocks were up with HCL Technologies gaining by 1.4 per cent to Rs 550.80 per share. Tech Mahindra ticked up by 1.2 per cent and Tata Consultancy Services by 0.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian shares moved higher as investors welcomed a trade agreement between Beijing and Washington over the weekend. 

But the enthusiasm was capped by lingering scepticism about ongoing relations between China and the United States. 

Still, that helped push the MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan up by 0.27 per cent while shares in Taiwan and South Korea added about 0.1 per cent. 

But Japan's Nikkei 225 succumbed to profit-taking, easing by 0.14 per cent after surging 2.55 per cent to a 14-month closing high on Friday.

The phase one agreement suspended a threatened round of US tariffs on a 160 billion dollar list of Chinese imports that were scheduled to take effect on Sunday. 

The United States also agreed to halve the tariff rate to 7.5 per cent on 120 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods.

(With inputs from ANI)