 "Sensex, Nifty up over 0.5%; ICICI Bank, Tata Motors gain 2%")
Benchmark indices are trading near day’s high led by renewed buying among pharma and banking shares.
Besides, investors will remain cautious ahead of F&O expiry of the December series, scheduled for December 31.
At 14:58 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 234 points at 26,072 and the Nifty50 gained 74 points to trade at 7,936. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices is up 0.3%-0.5% each.
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The rupee continued to rule higher against the American currency for the eighth straight session as it rose 7 paise to 66.14 at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange market today on increased selling of the US currency by exporters and banks.
In overseas markets, Asian stocks dipped on Monday amid a lack of immediate directional cues in light year-end trade, although Japanese shares managed to rise following a rebound in crude oil prices from multiple-year lows.
Investors across asset markets were without some of the usual leads as most global markets were closed on Friday for Christmas. The British markets will remain closed on Monday, while those in Germany and France will reopen.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gave up earlier modest gains and was down 0.4%. The index was on track for an 11% loss this year.
KEY STOCKS
Apart from telecom and metal, all the sectors are trading in positive zone.
Pharma majors like Dr Reddy's Labs, Sun Pharma, Lupin and Cipla have gained between 1%-3%. According to media report, Indian pharmaceutical firms are gearing up to tap new markets in 2016 as they look to consolidate their positions after a spate of mergers and acquisitions consummated this year.
Reliance Industries has gained 0.6% after its telecom arm of RIL, Reliance Jio on Sunday announced the much awaited fourth generation wireless broadband service for its employees under Jio brand name. Its competitors Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have come under pressure. Both these stocks have dropped between 1%-2% each.
Shares of Tata Motors have risen over 2%. The company is planning to locally produce the automated manual transmission of the next generation Nano by 2016.
ONGC has surged over 2%. The company's overseas arm ONGC Videsh (OVL) and Rosneft have signed an agreement of confirmation of successful completion of the first stage pre-completion actions in relation to the creation of a joint venture in JSC 'Vankorneft'.
GAIL India will take 5% stake in the international consortium building the $8.7 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. The stock has gained almost 1%.
Coal India is up 0.8%. Coal sector is looking for key reforms in the new year in areas like quality checks as also the steps for augmenting output and rationalising the prices.
ITC and HUL are set to expand their healthcare products category line. ITC is set to expand its Savlon brand across markets while HUL is aggressively pushing its Lifebuoy handwash programme. ITC is up almost 1% whereas HUL is trading flat.
On the losing side, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, M&M, HDFC and Asian Paints are down between 1-3%.
Among other shares, Allcargo Logistics is trading higher by 5% to Rs 418 after the company said December 31, 2015, has been fixed as a record date for the purpose of issue of bonus shares in the ratio of 1:1.
SpiceJet today announced a four-day sale, offering one-way base fares as low as Rs 716 for the journey period between January 15 and April 12 next year for domestic fliers. Shares of SpiceJet are up over 4%.
With Reuters input
