Market near day's highs, Nifty above 6,100

Markets were trading near their day highs led by RIL and private banks.

Markets were trading near their day highs and the Nifty managing to hold on to 6,100 levels led by index heavyweight Reliance Industries and private banks.

At 10:40AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 164 points at 20,585 and the 50-share Nifty was up 49 points at 6,106.

The rupee fell in early trades with the unit at 62.33 per dollar versus Wednesday's close of 62.14/15. Month-end oil-related dollar demand will keep the rupee under pressure.

RBI's special FX swap windows, which have garnered over $25 billion, will close in end-November, leading to some jitters on flows.

Asian markets were trading higher with Japan's Nikkei and China's Shanghai Composite leading the pack. Shares in Japan firmed up after the yen eased agains the US dollar on the back of encouraging economic data from the US. Japan's Nikkei was up 1.2% while Shanghai Composite was up 1.3%, Singapore's Straits Times was up 0.7% while and Hang Seng rose 0.6%.

 
The BSE Capital Goods index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices on the BSE up 1.6% followed by Oil and Gas, Realty, Bankex, Auto, Power and Metal indices up 0.9-1.4% each.

Index heavyweights Reliance Industries was up 1.6% at Rs 852 and ITC surged 0.6% at Rs 316 contributing the most to the gains on the Sensex,

In the banking space, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were up over 1% each.

Other gainers include, L&T, HDFC, M&M, ONGC and Tata Motors.

Meanwhile, Infosys and Jindal Steel continue to remain arginally down.

Shree Ganesh Jewellery House (India) is locked in lower circuit of 10% at Rs 33.30 on NSE after reporting huge losses of Rs 1,048 crore for the second quarter ended September 2013 (Q2), due to higher expenditure. The company had profit of Rs 83 crore in a year ago quarter.

Alstom T&D India is trading higher by over 3% at Rs 171 after the company said it is planning to raise up to Rs 294 crore through sale of shares to institutional investors on November 29.

Shares of Biocon is trading higher by 1% at Rs 389, extending its previous day’s over 3% rally, after the company said it has received approval from the Indian drug regulator to market its biosimilar trastuzumab developed jointly with Mylan for treating breast cancer.

The broader market firmed up with the BSE Mid-cap index up 0.9% and the Small-cap index up 0.8%.

Market breadth was positive with 1,027 gainers and 537 losers on the BSE.