Mumbai, Oct. 16 -- The key equity benchmarks pared their brief losses and moved higher to trade with moderate gains in morning trade, supported by buying interest in IT shares following strong second-quarter results from Tech Mahindra and other major IT companies. Investors remained focused on September-quarter earnings, with the Nifty trading above the 23,100 mark.

Market participants will track global developments, foreign institutional investor (FII) flows and further corporate earnings announcements for cues on market direction.

IT shares witnessed buying demand for the four consecutive trading sessions.

At 10:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex advanced 442.34 points or 0.60% to 74,754.15. The Nifty 50 index jumped 140...