Markets remain higher led by IT & financial shares

Benchmark indices are trading higher led by buying among software and financial shares.

By 13:00, Sensex gained by 84 points at 18,311, and the Nifty was up 25 points at 5,520 levels.

On the global front, Japan's Nikkei average rose on Wednesday morning, moving closer to a near five-year high, helped by optimism in the economic outlook since the Bank of Japan started its sweeping monetary expansion campaign. Shares of banks and real estate firms led the gains on expectations that the reflationary policy will benefit them the most.

Back home, the rupee recovered by 13 paise to 54.45 against the American currency in the late morning trade on fresh selling of dollars by banks on the back of lower dollar in the overseas market.

Car sales in India fell an annual 6.7% in the financial year that ended in March, their first fall in a decade.

Domestic passenger car sales declined by 22.51% to 180,675 units in March this year compared to 233,151 units in the same month of 2012. This was the fifth consecutive monthly slide, an industry body said on Wednesday.

On the sectoral front, BSE IT, Bankex and Capital Goods indices have surged by 1% each. However, BSE FMCG index has declined by nearly 1%.

The main gainers on the Sensex at this hour include HDFC, Wipro, Infosys, L&T, TCS, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, HDFC Bank and NTPC, all gaining between 1-3%.

On the losing side, Sun Pharma, JSPL, Sun Pharma and ONGC have declined between 1-2%.

Among other shares, GlaxoSmithkline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare is trading lower by 3.5% to Rs 3,935 extending its previous day’s 3% fall after the packaging foods maker said its chairman, Simon Scarff, has expressed his wish to step down from April 30, 2013.

Shasun Pharmaceuticals has moved higher by over 5% to Rs 68.90 in otherwise subdued market after the company said it has entered into a licensing agreement with a Swiss-based Debiopharm Group for the manufacturing and commercialization of Huperzine-A.

The market breadth in BSE remains weak with 1,217 shares declining and 849 shares advancing.