Nifty facing resistance above 8,400; HDFC, L&T up 1%

Markets continued to trade in a narrow range as weakness in IT stocks capped upside gains led by Sun Pharmaceutical and a rebound in Hindustan Unilever.

At 12.55PM, the Sensex was up 38 points at 27,714 and the Nifty was trading flat at 8,378. 

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap was up 0.1% and the Small-cap index was up 0.4%.

Meanwhile, proceedings in the parliament wille be keenly observed as the government hopes to pass the Constitution Amendment Bill for the introduction of a nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the country. Also, all eyes are on the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) as it gets ready to release its first forecast for the monsoon season from June to September in the country later during the day.

RUPEE

The Indian rupee was trading marginally higher at 62.83 per dollar against previous day's closing value of 62.85 a dollar tracking gains in equities.

STOCKS & SECTORS

BSE Healthcare index was the top gainer up 1% followed by Capital Goods, FMCG, Metal, Oil and Gas indices.

Shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries rebounded after to trade 1.5% higher after foreign investors bought shares of the drug maker via open market on Tuesday. Among its peers, Dr Reddy’s Lab and Cipla are trading higher by 0.4-1.1% each.

Hindustan Unilever witnessed renewed buying interest and was up nearly 3% after the stock corrected nearly 7% in the previous few sessions. ITC was trading flat.

Capital goods also witnessed renewed buying interest on recent commissioning of power projects and fresh order wins. L&T was up 1.1% while BHEL was up 0.5%.

M&M was trading higher by 2% on talk of the auto major raising its stake hike in Ssang Yong.

The financials were led by mortgage lender HDFC along with private bankers, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.

However, IT stocks are heading for their sixth day of losses after Wipro's Q4 revenues declined by  1.2% to $1,775 million and disappointing muted dollar revenue guidance for the June quarter. Wipro was down 4%, Infosys eased 0.8% and TCS was trading marginally lower.

Oil and Gas majors ONGC and GAIL have slipped in the red and are down up to 0.7% on further decline in the oil prices.

Among other shares, shares of Gitanjali Gems were up 8% after the company announced plans to rationalise the existing group structure and create synergy of operations.