Markets open marginally higher, Nifty tops 6,800

Markets extended gains to open marginally higher with financials and select auto shares leading gains

Markets extended gains and were trading marginally higher with Reliance Industries leading the gains after the company said it will sell KG-D6 gas at the revised price from April 1.

At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 52 points at 22,754 and the 30-share Nifty was up 8 points at 6,804.

Meanwhile, FIIs continued their buying spree in Indian shares and were net buyers to the tune of Rs 1044 crore on Wednesday. 

However, profit taking at higher levels is likely to cap further gains.  Large foreign and domestic brokers have differing views on the latest run in the markets that has taken key benchmark indices to all-time highs. While some argue there is more upside left, others suggest valuations might have run up far ahead of fundamentals.

“We see limited upside in most large-cap stocks, with stock prices largely discounting estimated earnings for 2014-15, even 2015-16 in some cases. The risk-reward balance is quite unfavourable in general, based on the binary outcome of national elections alone... We hope the election outcome is in line with the market’s hopes,” according to Kotak Institutional Equities Strategy report.

Stocks in Asia pared early gains and were trading lower except for Japan's Nikkei. The Nikkei rebounded after the sharp fall in the previous sessions. The Nikkei was up 0.6%, Hang Seng was down 0.3%,

Key US share indices extended gains on Wednesday after minutes of the latest Federal Reserve's policy meet indicating that the US central bank was more accomodating. Gains were led by a rebound in IT and biotechnology stocks which had witnessed profit taking.

The Dow Jones ended up 1.1at 16,437, the S&P 500 rose 1.1% to close at 1,872 and the tech-laden Nasdaq ended 1.7% higher at 4,184.

Stocks in Europe ended higher on Wednesday with auto shares leading the gains. The CAC-40 ended up 0.4% at 4,443, DAX gained 0.2% to close at 9,506 and the FTSE-100 ended up 0.7% at 6,636.

HDFC, Tata Motors and Sun Pharma contributed the most to Sensex gains along with select banks.

SBI was up 1% on talk that the state-owned banking major is planning to raise $1 billion through overseas bond sale.
Among other banks,  HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank were up 0.5-1.1% each.

Among other stocks,  Torrent Pharma was up 7%. The Competitition Commission of India has approved Torrent Pharma's proposed buyout of Elder Pharma's formulation business in India and Nepal for a consideration of Rs 2,000 crore.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India was down nearly 2% after the Board of Directors at its meeting held on April 09, 2014, inter alia, decided, for the time being, not to go ahead with the preferential allotment of shares.

Man Industries was up 14% on the back of winning orders worth Rs 700 crore.