Indian shares consolidated gains in late morning trades on Tuesday on caution ahead of key earnings announcement this week, however, hopes of rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India and upbeat Oct-Dec results by IT majors prevented any correction in equities.
At 11 AM, the 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange gained 23 points and traded at 19,929.09 and the 50-share Nifty gained 10 points at 6,034.20.
The top gainer was TCS which rose nearly 2% after reporting a better-than-expected 1% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,552 crore for the third quarter ended December 2012 (Q3). On year-on-year basis (yoy), net profit grew by 23%.
Other results to watch out for are Axis Bank which is scheduled later today, Bajaj Auto on January 16, HCL Technologies and Hero MotoCorp on 17 Jan while HDFC Bank, ITC, Reliance Industries and Wipro on Jan 18.
In Asia, markets were capped on earnings and US fiscal concerns. However, some of the exceptions were Japan's Nikkei share average which climbed 1.3% to 10,938, a 32-month high on Tuesday, driving the benchmark further into "overbought" territory, as persistent weakness in the yen boosts demand for exporters' shares.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.4% to 23,329, Taiwan's Weighted index fell 0.8% to 7,762, Singapore's Straits Times was down 0.6% to 3,187 while China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.3% to 2,319.
Back home, autos, technology, IT, capital goods, banks gained while metals, FMCG, oil & gas indexes dropped on BSE.
Among key Sensex stocks, SBI and ICICI Bank fell 0.1%, Sterlite Industries and Jindal Steel down 1% and 0.4%, Hindustan Unilever dropped 1.4%, Infosys fell 0.6%, while Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's fell 0.6% each on BSE.
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Among gainers, Wipro and TCS rose 0.1% and 2% , Bharti Airtel rose 1.3%, among autos, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Maruti Suzuki was up 1-1.3%, BHEL and Larsen & Toubro rose 0.5-1% while Tata Steel and Hindalco Industries rose 0..3% on BSE.
The other key notable movers include HCL Infosystems that has moved higher by 5% to Rs 41 after the hardware company said that its board approved the business restructuring.
Shalimar Paints has soared 17% to Rs 131 after reporting 24% year-on-year (yoy) jump in net profit at Rs 4.69 crore in December 2012 (Q3) quarter against Rs 3.77 crore in previous year quarter. The paint maker had a profit of Rs 2.78 crore in September 2012 quarter.
SpiceJet has surged 7% to Rs 47 in early morning deals on back of heavy volumes on reports that Qatar Airways may buy stake in the low-cost carrier (LCC).
The broader markets gained with mid-caps and small-caps rising 0.4-0.5% on BSE.
The market breadth was positive. Out of 2,294 stocks traded, 1,271 stocks advanced compared to 913 declines on BSE.