Markets off day highs on profit taking

The markets have come off their day's highs as profit taking was seen at higher levels after gains in the past few sessions.

Meanwhile, investors are keenly awaiting the February inflation numbers. The Sensex was up 93 points at 17,906 and the Nifty was up 30 points at 5,459.

The Sensex has touched an intra-day high of 18,041 and the Nifty touched a high of 5,499 so far.

Asian shares continued to trade between 1-2% tracking gains in key US share indices which ended at multi-year highs on Tuesday after comments by the Federal Reserve boosted expectations that it would further ease monetary policy.

The Railway Budget will be unveiled by the Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi at 12PM today.

Railway related stocks are trading mixed ahead of Railway Budget which will be presented today. The railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who will present his maiden budget, may impose a safety cess, at least on higher-class tickets.

Among the individual stocks, Kernax Microsystems (India) was trading higher by 3% at Rs 95, followed by Bharat Earth Movers Limited (up 2%) and Kalindee Rail Nirman (Engineers) (up 1%); while Titagarh Wagons and Stone India are trading lower by 1% each on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Among the sectoral indices on the BSE, the capital goods, auto and bankex indices were up over 1% each.

In the Sensex pack, top gainers include ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Tata Motors were all up over 2.3% each.

Fast moving consumer goods shares such as Hindustan Unilever and ITC were up nearly 1% each.

Index heavyweight Infosys has extended Tuesday's gains this morning after inking a deal with GlaxoSmithKline to optimize digital channels across its global consumer healthcare and pharma business lines. The stock was up nearly 1% at Rs 2,880.

Among other shares, Patni Computer Systems was up 4% to Rs 493 in morning trades, after iGate Corporation, the promoter of the company proposed to delist the company’s shares from the Indian exchanges and has set the base price of Rs 356.74 a share for delisting the shares.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprises has surged 6% to Rs 657 on huge volumes after US-based private equity firm Apax Partners has transferred its entire 12.67% equity shares in the company to its group affiliate HSTN Acquisition via market deals worth Rs 1,033 crore in an inter se transfer.

BSE market breadth was positive. Out of 2,598 shares traded, 1,419 shares have advanced while 1,040 shares have declined in trades.