Markets hover around record highs as lenders gain

Banks, Oil & Gas and Metal among the top gainers

Markets were firm in noon trades with the benchmark indices hovering close to its record highs with a 1.3% gain. At 1430 hrs, the Sensex was up 287 points at 22,042 and the Nifty gained 86 points to trade at 6,580.

The Sensex and Nifty surpassed their previous all-time highs hit just last week on the back strong foreign investor flows. The Nifty rose to a lifetime high of 6,580.90, while the benchmark Sensex touched a record high of 22,046.58

Foreign investors have been particularly heavy buyers during the rally, with net purchases of $1.6 billion of shares so far this month, regulatory data showed.

However, broader markets refrained to participate in the rally with the mid and smallcap indices adding a marginal  0.1-0.2% as compared to the over one percent gains seen on the benchmark index.

Among the sectoral indices, banks and Oil & Gas indices were the top gainers, adding over 2% each.

Metal and Auto indices up 1% each were the other sectoral gainers.

Health Care index down 0.5% and Consumer Durables and IT indices flat with a negative bias are the only indices in red.

Pharma names Dr Reddys Lab, Sun Pharma and Cipla were down 0.6-1%.

IT majors Infosys and Wipro gave off 0.6% each.

ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank up 1.4-3.7% were the movers in financial space.

Gail India, PNGC and Relaince Industries which gained 1.7-4.2% were the major index gainers.

Auto majors Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors added 0.8-2.2%.

ITC and HUL from the FMCG space moved up 1.5% each.

The market breadth was negative owing to the decline in broader markets on BSE. 1466 stocks declined while 1260 stocks advanced.

Global Markets

Asian shares advanced moderately on Monday, choosing to embrace last week's firm performance by global equity markets while remaining fairly sanguine over the Crimea crisis and China's slowing growth.

Asian shares took an early knock after the China HSBC flash manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to an eight-month low in March, the latest in a string of indicators pointing to a loss of momentum in China's economy.

But MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan still managed to add 0.9 percent and Japan's Nikkei share average gained 1.8 percent, after solid performances on Wall Street last week, with the Dow and S&P 500 posting weekly gains of 1.5 percent and 1.4 percent.

However, European markets after recording their biggest weekly gain in a month last week, started lower. CAC, DAX and FTSE slipped 0.1-0.6%.