Asian shares are higher today as Chinese and Hong Kong shares show gains. The Shanghai Composite is up 0.55% while the Hang Seng is up 0.56%. The Nikkei 225 is trading up by 0.04%. US stocks ended higher on Friday as US employers added more jobs than expected in the month of November, cementing the case for an interest rate hike this week.

Back home, India share markets have opened the day on a strong note. The BSE Sensex is trading higher by 142 points while the NSE Nifty is trading higher by 37 points. The BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index opened the day up by 0.5% & 0.4% respectively.

All sectoral indices have opened the day in green with realty stocks and bank stocks witnessing maximum buying interest. The rupee is trading at 64.46 to the US$.

Meanwhile, the first-even bitcoin future began trading Sunday as the increasingly popular virtual currency made its debut on a major US exchange. The futures contract that expires in January rose from US$15,460 to US$16,000 in its first hours of trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Bharti Airtel share price surged 2.4% on the reports that the telecom operator has signed an agreement with the department of telecom and the Universal Service Obligation Fund to provide mobile services in identified uncovered villages and national highways in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

Axis bank share price gained 1.4% after bank’s shareholders approved mobilisation of Rs 116.3 billion through sale of shares and warrants to a group of investors, including Bain Capital and LIC.

Cement stocks opened the day on a mixed note with Ultratech Cement and JK Lakshmi Cement being the most active stocks in this space. As per an article in a leading financial daily, UltraTech Cement is setting up a 3.5-million-tonne greenfield cement plant at Pali in Rajasthan for Rs 18.5 billion.