Markets continued to hold on to its gains in early afternoon trades. At 12:30pm,the Sensex was up 41 points at 18,865 and the Nifty added 14 points at 5,732.
Meanwhile, broader markets outperformed the BSE benchmark index. The smallcap index advanced 0.7% and the midcap index was up 0.4% as compared to the Sensex which added 0.2%
The rupee was trading at 52.41 to a dollar on selling of the American currency by banks and exporters amid persistent foreign capital inflows into the equity market.
Asian markets continued to remain under pressure on worries over continued sluggish global growth. Hang Seng, Nikkei, KLSE Composite, Taiwan Weighted and Jakarta Composite lost 0.2-0.4%.
Back home, among the sectoral indices, Oil & Gas index was up over 1% followed by Health Care, Capital Goods indices up 0.8% and 0.5% respectively. Meanwhile, IT, Auto, Consumer Durables and Bankex indices gave off 0.1-0.3%
Dr Reddys Lab, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Industries, Coal India, Sterlite, Mahindra & Mahindra, Sun Pharma, TCS, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel up 1-3% were the top gainers among the Sensex-30.
Among the draggers were Jindal Steel, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, ITC, Tata Motors and BHEL down 1-4%
Among other stocks, West Coast Paper Mills surged 18% at Rs 83.20, extending its Monday’s over 7% rally on renewed speculation that that US-based International Paper Mills is planning to buy a stake in the company.
TTK Healthcare advanced nearly 16% to Rs 457 on back of huge volumes on reports that TTK group and UK-based New Bridge Holdings, a step-down subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser Group have settled their dispute over control of their joint venture TTK-LIG.
The market breadth was positive. 1612 stocks advanced while 1040 stocks declined on the BSE.
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