Nifty holds 8,250 mark; BHEL surges 3%

BHEL, Dr Reddy's Labs, Hindalco, NTPC, Bharti Airtel and Hero Moto are top gainers from the Sensex pack

Markets are trading marginally positive amid choppy trade led by capital goods shares.

At 12:27 PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 32 points at 27,435 and the 50-share Nifty was up 14 points at 8,262.

The main gainers on the Sensex are BHEL, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Hindalco, NTPC, Bharti Airtel and Hero Moto.  

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Updated at 12 PM

Benchmark indices are trading in a narrow range with positive bias led by capital goods and power shares.

At 12:00 PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 45 points at 27,448 and the 50-share Nifty was up 16 points at 8,266.

The broader markets are outperforming the benchmark indices- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are up by almost 1%.

The market breadth in BSE remains positive with 1,421 shares advancing and 933 shares declining.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 277.92 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Among global markets, Chinese stocks were celebrating their best year in five on Wednesday while markets elsewhere in Asia were ending 2014 on a cautionary note as worries about Greece's future in the euro zone served as an excuse to take profits on crowded trades.

The U.S. dollar lost a little of its recent gains, but the euro got no respite as European bonds yields scored all-time lows following a shockingly sharp fall in Spanish inflation.

The stand-out global equity performer was China, where the CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen looked set to end 2014 with gains of nearly 50 percent, the biggest among the world's major markets.

Back home, BSE Power index has gained over 1% followed by counters like Capital Goods, Banks, Consumer Durables, FMCG, Oil & Gas and Realty, all gaining between 0.1-1%. Apart from Auto, all the major BSE sectoral indices are trading in positive zone.

The main gainers on the Sensex are Dr Reddy’s Labs, BHEL, Hindalco, Tata Power, NTPC and Axis Bank.

On the losing side, M&M, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Coal India have gained between 0.2-2%.

Among other shares, Bajaj Corp rises over 2% to Rs 360 on BSE after the company said its board has approved a proposal to hike the foreign institutional investors investment cap to 49% stake in the paid-up equity capital of the company.

Atul Auto has surged over 7% to Rs 682 on BSE after Goldman Sachs bought a total of 4.05 lakh shares of the company in bulk deals on BSE yesterday.

Orbit Corporation has fallen over 4% to Rs 12.65 after LIC Housing Finance took possession of its property in Mumbai pursuant to a loan default by the company.