Indian shares continued their upward trend in late morning trades, tracking their Asian peers,with the Nifty topping the 5,500 mark for the first time since August 1, 2011 and the Sensex topping the 18,000 mark.
At 11:20AM the Sensex was up 264 points at 18,112 and the Nifty was up 80 points at 5,497 after hitting an intra-day high of 5,503.65 so far.
Asian markets continues to surge with key share indices such as Nikkei, Shanghai COmposite and Hang Seng up between 1-2.5% each.
All sectoral indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange were in the green led by auto, capital goods and realty indices all up over 3% each.
Tata Motors is the top contributor to the Sensex's upmove. The stock was up over 6.5% at Rs 285 after the company Tuesday reported better-than-expected December quarter results. Among other auto shares, M&M was up 3.2% and Maruti Suzuki was up 4%.
AMong capital goods shares Larsen & Toubro was up 4.2% at Rs 1,438. BHEL was up 2.2% ahead of a Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherje today to take a decision on the stake sale route for these companies.
FInancial shares were up on expectation that the central bank may reduce interest rates in March after India's headline inflation in January fell to a two-year low of 6.55%. SBI, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were up 1-2.5% each.
Among other shares, Voltas has soared 16% to Rs 109 after reporting a consolidated net loss of Rs 115 crore for the quarter ended December, due to exceptional items including a charge for an onerous contract of Rs 277 crore. The company had a net profit of Rs 77 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal.
Jaiprakash Associates has gained 4% to Rs 83 in spite of reporting a 12% drop in net. Jaiprakash Associates' net profit declined by 12% to Rs 205 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal, mainly on higher interest outgo.
Great Offshore has surged 11% to Rs 118 after reporting almost five-fold jump in net profit at Rs 8.29 reported a net profit of Rs 1.83 crore in a year ago quarter.
In the broader markets, the Mid-cap index was up 1.6% and the Small-cap index was up 1.1%.
Market breadth continues to remain positive with 1,792 gainers and 707 losers on the BSE.
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