Markets come off day's highs; BHEL up 4%

As investors booked profits at higher levels in index heavyweights such as Reliance Ind and ICICI Bank

Markets have come off their day's highs in noon deals on Wednesday as investors booked profits at higher levels in index heavyweights.

At 1:10PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 47 points at 20,731 after hitting an intra-day high of 20,829 and the 50-share Nifty was up 19 points at 6,145 after touching 6,170 intra-day so far.

The rupee continued to trade firm against the US dollar tracking gains in stock markets. The Indian currency was trading at Rs 62.16 compared with previous close of Rs 62.52 per dollar. The rupee is seen trading range bound ahead of outcome of FOMC meet.

Asian markets edged higher on Wednesday amid a monetary tightening measures by the Turkish central bank which surprisingly hiked the overnight lending rate by 425 basis points to 12%. Japan's benchmark Nikkei was the top gainer in the region and ended up 2.7%, Shanghai Composite gained 0.6%, Hang Seng was up 1.1% while Straits Times was down 0.7%.

The BSE Healthcare index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices up 1.6% followed by Auto, Capital Goods indices among others. Metal Index was the sole loser down 0.8%.

Pharma shares witnessed buying on the back of robust earnings in the third quarter. Sun Pharma was up nearly 3% contributing the most to the Sensex gains while Dr Reddys Labs and Cipla were up 1-2% each.

Maruti Suzuki continued to remain as the top Sensex gainer after the stock rebounded today and was up 7.5% amid short covering. The stock had witnessed a sharp fall on Tuesday after its board’s decision to accept Suzuki Motor Corp’s (SMC) proposal to contract manufacture vehicles from the proposed manufacturing facility in Gujarat.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries came off its day's highs and was trading 0.2% down at Rs 844.

ICICI Bank which was up over 1% also witnessed profit taking and was up 0.7%. The private banking major today reported Q3 net profit of Rs 2,532 crore compared to Rs 2,250 crore in the same quarter last year, a gain of 12.5%. Total Income increased from Rs 12,353 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 to Rs 14,256 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2013.

Gross NPA stood at 3.05% vs 3.08% q-o-q while net NPA was at 0.94% vs 0.85% q-o-q

In the capital goods segment, BHEL and L&T were up 1-4% each.

Metal shares witnessed profit taking after recent gains. Tata Steel, Sesa Sterlite and Hindalco were down 1-2% each.

The broader markets also came off their day's highs with BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.4% each.

Market breadth weakened slightly with 1,262 gainers and 1,021 losers on the BSE.