Markets come off day's high; Shanghai Composite drops 8%

Benchmark indices have come off day’s high but are trading firm in the noon trades on the back of strong quarterly numbers posted the companies with Wipro and Reliance contributing over 50 points to the rise on the 30-share Sensex. Weakness in the China shares dampen the sentiments of the investors.

At 12.53 PM, the 30-share Sensex is up 123 points at 28,245 and the 50-share Nifty has gained 31 points to trade at 8,545.

The Indian rupee shed some of its early gains but was still trading higher at 61.73 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of 61.86 tracking gains in equities.

Further, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 1,100 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Brent crude oil prices traded around $50 a barrel on Monday, with some support coming from falling U.S. output growth.

Asian Markets:

Asian markets were trading lower, driven by China where the stock market fell hard, erasing all year-to-date gains. Shares of brokerages in China tanked after the regulator banned three of them from opening new margin trading accounts. The Shanghai Composite plunged 8.4% at the open—which would be its largest drop since 2009. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2%, while Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average was up around 0.9%. 

Key Stocks:

All the 12 sectoral indices are trading in the green led by Consumer Durables index up 2.7% followed by Oil and Gas, Capital Goods, Bankex and Healthcare indices among others.

Oil and gas shares bounced back in today’s trade as oil prices strengthened at 50$ per barrel. Reliance Industries is up over 1% after a weak opening after reporting 4.5% drop in its consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 2014. Further, reports suggest it will commission all of its 1400 fuel retail outlets in a year's time and plans to replicate the success of 2006 in the fuel retail segment. GAIL gained nearly 4.5% while ONGC rose 1%.

Wipro surged 6% leading the gains on the Sensex after the IT major reported higher dollar revenue growth compared to its peers. Wipro managed to inch closer to the upper end of its earlier forecast in constant currency terms, posting 3.7% growth at $1,836.2 million. However, TCS continue to lose sheen after posting weak quarterly results. The stock is down 0.8%.

Shares of private banks are among the top gainers on hopes that credit growth would pick up post the rate cut by the RBI. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are up between 0.3-1% each while Axis Bank has climbed 2.6% after it reported an 18% rise in net profit in the October-December quarter, on the back of higher other income and net interest income.

Capital goods shares also firmed up on hopes of order inflows from power generators. L&T and BHEL are both up over 1% and 2% each.

In the Healthcare segment, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Dr Reddy's Labs are up 1-1.7% each.

Hindustan Unilever which was the top Sensex gainer last week rising 9% is down 1% ahead of its Oct-Dec earnings to be announced later today.

In the broader market, BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices are up between 0.5-0.9%.

Market breadth is positive with 1,628 gainers and 1,018 losers on the BSE.