Markets continue to trade firm on the back of supportive Asian markets and strength in banks and IT space. The Sensex was up 94 points at 17,000 and the Nifty gained 31 points at 5,152. So far, the Sensex had touched a low of 16,976.
In the broader markets, the midcap and the smallcap indices were up 0.6% each outperforming the Senesx which advanced 0.5%
On the currency front, rupee depreciated by 12 paise to 57.13 against the dollar in early trade on the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, following increased month-end demand for the American currency from importers.
In the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei share average advanced 0.3% by massive gains for a few speculative stocks as uncertainty reigned ahead of an EU summit on Thursday. Hang Seng, Jakarta Composite and Straits Times were among the top gainers, up 1% each.
Back home, among the sectoral indices, Power, IT and Bankex indices advanced 1% each. Power stocks are in limelight today after the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) announced a 26% increase in power tariff for all domestic consumers with effect from July 1.The movers were Tata Power, Reliance Infra and JSW Energy up 2-3%.
The top gainers among the Sensex stocks were ICICI Bank, Hindalco, HDFC Bank, NTPC, GAIL and Infosys up 1% each.
Among the losers were Tata Motors and ONGC down 1% each. Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Industries down 0.2-0.6% were the other notable losers.
The market breadth was very positive. 1439 stocks advanced while 731 stocks declined on the BSE.
Among individual stocks, MindTree soared 8.3% to Rs 668, its highest price since January 2010, on back of huge volumes.
Kingfisher Airlines tanked 13% to Rs 11.65 on reports that lessors have taken back about 32 aircraft in the past few weeks due to non-payments of rental by the cash-strapped airline.
