)
Key benchmark indices have trimmed early gains on account of profit taking in Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and HUL. Traders are likely to remain cautious ahead of the FOMC meet later today.
At 1130 hrs, the Sensex was up 26 points at 26,779 and the Nifty had barely moved by seven points to trade at 7,999.
However, financial shares continued to gain on hopes of an earlier than expected interest rate cut by the RBI.
The activity in the broader markets were mixed with the Smallcap index up 0.4% while the Midcap index was almost unchanged hovering close to yesterday's close.
On the currency front, the Rupee was trading lower at 61.39 compared with Monday's close of 61.30. All eyes are on the Fed meet due Oct 28-29.
Sectors & Stocks
On the sectoral front, FMCG, Metal, Oil and Gas and Power were the only sectoral indices in red, down 0.4-0.7%
Auto and Teck indices were flat with a negative bias.
Bharti Airtel, BHEL, HUL, Hero MotoCorp, RIL, Dr Reddys and Maruti down 1-2% were the notable laggards in trade.
Among the winners were GAIL, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, SBI, Cipla, M&M and HDFC up 1-2%.
In individual stocks, Styrosolution ABS was up 4% at Rs 613 after Reliance Mutual Fund acquired 105,000 shares of the company from the open market.
Shares of construction and engineering company NCC soared 12% to Rs 49.70 on back of heavy volumes on the bourses.
Astral Poly Technik dipped 8% to Rs 352 after reporting nearly 400 bps decline in operating profit margin at 12% during the quarter ended September 2014 (Q2), due to higher raw material and employee cost.
The market breadth was positive on BSE. 1,200 stocks had advanced while 1,130 stocks declined.
Asian Markets
Asian shares were modestly higher while the dollar held steady on Tuesday, as investors awaited the outcome of the US Federal Reserve's two-day meeting that begins later in the session for clues to the direction of US interest rates.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shrugged off early losses and a lackluster performance on Wall Street to rise about 0.3%.
But Japan's Nikkei stock average extended losses, shedding 0.8%
