Equities opened on a strong note on Tuesday with Sensex jumping more than 359 points and the broader Nifty crossing the 18,000-level amid continuing foreign fund inflows and positive global trends.

The 30-share Sensex rose for the fourth consecutive session and surged 359.49 points to 60,474.62 points. As many as 28 constituents of the index were trading in the green.

The broader NSE Nifty crossed the 18,000-level in the early trade. The index jumped 111.35 points to 18,047.70 points.

Asian markets, including South Korea and Hong Kong, were trading higher. On Monday, the US and European markets closed in the green territory.

On Monday, the Sensex closed above the 60,000 level, gaining for the third straight session. It closed higher by 321.99 points at a three-week high of 60,115.13.

The Nifty too had ended in the positive territory, rising 103 points to close at 17,936.35.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pumped Rs 2,049.65 crore into domestic equities on Monday, according to data available on BSE.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said the ongoing market rally is primarily driven by the sudden reversal of FII strategy.

"Retail investor support and fundamental support to the market from a strong economy are aiding the rally. Now, this has become a classic momentum driven market which has the potential to take the indices to new record highs soon," he said.

Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, fell 0.21 per cent to USD 93.80 per barrel.

On the domestic macroeconomic side, retail inflation rose to 7 per cent in August due to higher food and fuel costs while the factory output declined to a four-month low of 2.4 per cent in July, as per official data released on Monday.