Markets turned positive and were trading marginally higher in the morning session led by gains in heavyweight Reliance Industries, TCS and Infosys which contributed around 40 points to the Sensex.
The S&P CNX Nifty opened on a soft note and touched a low of 5,622 in opening trades, but the index reversed course and eked out marginal gains-up 15 points, at 5,645 and the benchmark Sensex advanced 40 points, at 18,785.
Analysts said that 7% rally posted last week will fade away in the coming days. Elara Capital in the monthly note said, "There are too many headwinds such as inflation numbers and tightening that could snatch the legs away from the rally." The rally from 5,250 to 5,600 was mainly led by Foreign Institutional Investor fund flows as they have invested Rs 8,947 crore (around $2 billion) in the past seven trading sessions.
Nifty will consolidate in a band of 5,620-5,680 levels. Emkay Global Research said, derivative data indicates skepticism in the prevailing market as there was lower accumulation of positions in the Nifty futures segment. Nifty July futures had open interest of 21.57 million contracts on Tuesday, which was lowest in past three series (compared on three days after expiry).
Markets across Asia were trading lower on Wednesday morning session. Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's Shanghai Composite lost 0.5% and 0.9% dragged down by losses in the banking shares. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.2% supported by mild gains in blue-chip technology shares.
Back in India, among individual stocks Idea Cellular rebounded, up 1.4%, at Rs 78 after the tribunal court stopped the Department of Telecommunication from imposing a penalty on acquisition of Spice Communication.
Godrej Consumers was up 1.4%, shrugging of reports that Hershey's, US based chocolate major and Godrej have called off their joint venture due to management differences.
Reliance Industries advanced 0.9% this morning after the oil & gas conglomerate agreed to drill three development wells at Krishna Godavari basin yesterday. RIL was under attack by Directorate General of Hydrocarbons for not meeting its drilling requirements.
Among the sectoral pack, the BSE Realty index was leading the gains, up 1%. Anant Raj Industries was up 2%, DB Realty added 1.7% and Phoenix Mills gained 1.5%.
From the IT pack, TCS advanced 1% and bellwether Infosys gained 0.4%.
Defensive pharmaceutical space was a laggard in trade, the BSE healthcare index was down 0.2%. Cadilla health was down 3.4%, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories declined 0.5% and IPCA lab gave up 0.3%.
From the broader markets, the midcap and the smallcap indices were up 0.3% and 0.2% each.
