Markets come off day's highs; Auto shares lead

Financial shares witnessed profit taking even as auto shares gained on the back of robust festival sales

Benchmark share indices came off their day's highs in late morning trades amid profit taking in financials even as auto shares emerged as the top gainers buoyed by robust festival sales.

At 11:50AM, the 30-share Sensex is up 180 points at 26,756 after hitting a high of 26,818 and the 50-share Nifty is up 56 points at 7,984 after touching a high of 7,999.

The Rupee was trading higher at Rs 61.22 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of Rs 61.30 tracking gains in the domestic stock markets.

Asian markets are trading higher tracking overnight gains on Wall Street after encouraging earnings from US technology majors. Stocks in Japan gained the most after trade data released earlier today showed that exports in September increased 6.9% compared to the same month last year. The benchmark Nikkei has gained 2.6%. Shanghai Composite was down 0.2% and Strait Times was up 0.7% while Hang Seng is up 1.1%.

All sectoral indices are in the green led by BSE Auto index which was up 2.3% followed by Capital Goods, Healthcare, Consumer Durables among others.

Festive buying and anticipation of greater sales due to cuts in diesel prices have pushed up auto stocks. Tata motors has gained more than 2% while Bajaj Auto and Maruti Suzuki have gained close to 2% and M&M has gained 0.6%

Hero Motocorp has gained more than 3% after the company said it expects to clock sales of around 150,000 two-wheelers on the occassion of Dhanteras on October, 21, a growth of 40-50% compared to sales on Dhanteras in 2013.

Reliance Industries was among the top Sensex gainers up 1.7% on value buying at lower levels after the stock corrected post the gas price hike.

In the capital goods space, L&T and BHEL were up 2% each.

Among banking stocks, SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC and ICICI Bank have trimmed some of their early gains and are trading flat.

Among pharma stocks, Cipla gained around 2% and Dr Reddy's jumped around 2.2% while Sun Pharma rose around 1.7%.

Coal India slipped  0.7% as the company is not seen to be benefitting from coal reforms.

Among other stocks, Financial Technologies India (FTIL) is trading higher by 3% to Rs 175, recovering nearly 30% from its intra-day low on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The stock had slumped after the government on Tuesday proposed a merger of the National Spot Exchange (NSEL) with the company.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.9-1% each.

Market breadth was strong with 1,499 gainers and 802 losers on the BSE.