Sensex, Nifty Edge Higher Led By Gains In Power, IT Shares

The Indian equity benchmarks were trading on a flat note in morning deals on Tuesday as gains in Infosys, Bajaj Finance, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and ITC were offset with losses in Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. The Sensex rose as much as 104 points to hit an intraday high of 52,432.43 andf Nifty 50 index touched an all-ime high of 15,778.80.

As of 9:22 am, the Sensex was up 48 points at 52,376 and Nifty 50 index advanced 11 points to 15,763.

Meanwhile, other Asian markets opened higher on Tuesday cruising in the slipstream of a record high overnight gauge of global equity markets, with investors hoping for inflation and monetary policy clues later in a week full of key central bank meetings and data points.

Back home, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 186 crore on Monday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 983.97 crore.

Twelve of 19 sector gauges compiled by the BSE were trading higher led by the S&P BSE Utilities index’s over 1 per cent gain. IT, Power, FMCG, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services indices were also trading higher.

On the other hand, Metal, Energy, Basic Materials and Banking indices were trading lower.

Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as S&P BSE MidCap index advanced 0.3 per cent and S&P BSE SmallCap index rose 0.4 per cent.

Tata Consumer Products was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2 per cent to Rs 715. Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, TCS, Britannia Industries, Maruti Suzuki and Eicher Motors also rose between 0.6-1.5 per cent.

On the flipside, Hindalco, JSW Steel, SBI Life, Tata Steel, ONGC, Tata Motors, State Bank of India, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Labs, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC were among the losers.