The Sensex hit fresh intraday high while the Nifty was trading with small gains in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 85.93 points or 0.25% at 33,966.18. The Nifty 50 index was up 16.35 points or 0.16% at 10,418.60. IT shares were in demand. Pharmaceutical shares were mixed.
Traders were cautious ahead of the earnings season beginning Friday with Infosys, and as the US Federal Reserve will release minutes of its 20-21 March 2018 meeting on Wednesday.
A steep rise in crude oil prices overnight also worried investors. Brent crude oil prices crossed $70 a barrel mark. In the global commodities markets, Brent for June 2018 settlement was down 38 cents at $70.66 a barrel. The contract surged $2.39 a barrel or 3.48% to settle at $71.04 a barrel during the previous trading session. Spike in oil prices raises India's import bill as the country imports majority of its crude requirements.
After opening with minor gains, key indices tumbled in morning trade. Indices pared losses and were trading with small losses in mid-morning trade. Market bounced back in afternoon trade. The Sensex rose 101.29 points, or 0.30% at the day's high of 33,981.54 in mid-afternoon trade, its highest intraday level since 13 March 2018. The index fell 129.51 points, or 0.38% at the day's low of 33,750.74 in morning trade, its lowest intraday level since 9 April 2018. The Nifty rose 25.90 points, or 0.25% at the day's high of 10,428.15 in early trade, its highest intraday level since 13 March 2018. The index fell 46.65 points, or 0.45% at the day's low of 10,355.60 in morning trade, its lowest intraday level since 9 April 2018.
Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.11%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.22%. Both these indices underperformed the Sensex.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was negative. On BSE, 1,436 shares fell and 1,130 shares rose. A total of 138 shares were unchanged.
IT shares were in demand. HCL Technologies (up 2.48%), TCS (up 1.74%), Hexaware Technologies (up 1.43%), Oracle Financial Services Software (up 0.89%), MphasiS (up 0.76%), Tech Mahindra (up 0.13%) and MindTree (up 0.12%), edged higher. Persistent Systems was down 0.59%. Wipro was down 0.09%.
IT major Infosys was up 0.97%. Calix announced a strategic multi-year partnership with Infosys, that will accelerate communications service provider (CSP) adoption of AXOS, its Software Defined Access (SDA) Platform. Calix and Infosys will jointly invest to co-create new services and value-added offerings on the award winning AXOS platform. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 10 April 2018.
Infosys will announce Q4 results on Friday, 13 April 2018.
Pharmaceutical shares were mixed. Alkem Laboratories (down 2.4%), Divi's Laboratories (down 2.36%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (down 1.28%), Piramal Enterprises (down 0.62%), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (down 0.52%), Strides Shasun (down 0.35%), Aurobindo Pharma (down 0.18%), GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (down 0.08%) and Lupin (down 0.06%), edged lower. Wockhardt (up 0.14%), Cadila Healthcare (up 0.40%), Cipla (up 0.48%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.97%) and IPCA Laboratories (up 2.32%), edged higher.
Overseas, European equities were trading lower, tracking mixed cues from Asian market, with traders failing to take any significant succour from new signs trade tension between the US and China was easing.
China's factory inflation slowed for a fifth month while the consumer price index retreated from a four-year high. The producer price index rose 3.1% in March from a year earlier, compared with 3.7% in February. The consumer price index climbed 2.1%, the statistics bureau said Wednesday, versus 2.9% in February.
US stocks surged on Tuesday, 10 April 2018, thanks to a less-aggressive stance on trade taken by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi's conciliatory comments on tariffs sent prices of risky assets such as global equities and commodities higher.
Chinese President Xi said that Beijing plans to give foreign companies greater access to financial and manufacturing sectors. He also talked about a cut in tariffs on car imports and an improvement in protection of intellectual property, among other measures.
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