Markets have erased early losses and are trading in a narrow range in noon trades with value buying seen in select mid-cap and small-cap shares.
At 12:50PM, Sensex was up 51 points at 17,287 after trading in a 100-point range whil the 50-share Nifty gained 16 points at 5,245 after trading in a 33-point range so far.
On the global front, Asian shares fell on Wednesday as soft Chinese manufacturing data further undermined investor confidence and as hopes faded for bold stimulus action this week by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to underpin faltering economies.
Back home, India's exports contracted for the second consecutive month in June by 5.45%, year-on-year, to $25 billion on account of growing economic uncertainties in the Western markets.
Imports dipped more sharply, by 13.46% to $35.37 billion during the month, compared to $40.8 billion in June 2011, resulting in a narrower trade deficit of $10.3 billion.
On the sectoral front, BSE Realty, Capital Goods, Healthcare and Power indices have surged by almost 1% each. Sectors like FMCG, Banks, Consumer Durable, Auto and Oil & Gas are trading marginally in positive zone. However, BSE Metal and IT indices have declined between 0.5-1%.
Capital Goods majors like BHEL and L&T have spurted between 1-2%.
Drug maker Cipla is the top Sensex gainer rises as much as 7.4% to a session high of 363.30 rupees, marking its highest since January 7, 2011. Cipla said late on Monday net profit for the June quarter jumped 58.1 percent to 4 billion rupees, trumping expectations, which analysts said were at around 3 billion rupees.
Banking and financial shares like SBI, HDFC and ICICI Bank have gained between 0.2-2% after they witnessed profit taking on Tuesday following Reserve Bank of India's neutral stance on key policy rates and lowered growth forecast for the current fiscal to 6.5% from 7.3% estimated earlier.
Index heavyweight Reliance Inds is up by nearly 1%. Other notable gainers include Tata Power, HUL, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Dr Reddy’s Lab and Jindal Steel.
On the losing side, Coal India is the top Sensex loser, down over 3% on reports that the board of the State-owned company has decided to revise the contentious penalty clause in the fuel supply agreements (FSAs) to be signed with the power firms. CIL has also agreed to supply at least 80% of the required fuel to power firms.
Maruti Suzuki was down nearly 1%. The country's largest carmaker Maruti suzuki India (MSI) today reported a 9.2% increase in sales for July at 82,234 units as against 75,300 units in the same month last year.
Bharti Airtel extended losses on reports that the company is planning to raise funds by issuing new shares to the public or institutional investors to pare its massive debt.
Other notable losers are Hero MotoCorp, ONGC, TCS and Infosys.
The broader indices are outperforming the benchmark indices – BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are up nearly 1% each.
The market breadth in BSE remains healthy with 1,561 advancing and 930 shares declining.
The main gainers from the BSE Midcap space include Dewan Housing, Indiabulls Power, HT Media, Delta Corp, Bayer CropScience, Anant Raj Inds and Aurobindo Pharma.
Among individual shares, Deccan Chronicle Holdings (DCHL) has extended losses and was locked in 10% lower circuit at Rs 13.95, continuing at its downward march, falling almost 50% in past nine trading sessions on the back of slew of negative developments at the company.
IDBI Bank shares fall 1.9%, a day after the public sector lender posted a lower-than-expected April-June net profit of 7.71 billion Indian rupees.
Analysts say the lender faced higher provisioning expenses of 5.07 billion rupees in the previous quarter, after gross and net non-performing asset levels rose by 3.2 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.
