Markets retain gains as index heavyweights advance

Reliance Industries, Tata Motors and HDFC among the top gainers

Markets continue to trade firm in late morning trades as index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Tata Motors and HDFC retain their early gains. At 1130 hrs, the Sensex was up 150 points at 19,711 and the Nifty gained 43 points at 5,965.

In the broader markets, the midacp index advanced nearly 1% and the smallcap index gained 0.7% in line with the Sensex.

Among the sectoral indices, Realty, IT, Auto, Oil & Gas and Consumer Durables indices gained 1% each followed by Capital Goods, Bankex, Metal, PSU and Health Care indices, up 0.3-0.7%.

The only laggard among the indices was FMCG which was down 0.2%.

The losers among the Sensex stocks were Dr Reddy’s Lab, Bajaj Auto,Hindustan Unilever, Tata Power, Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp down 0.3-2%.

Among the top gainers was Tata Motors which surged nearly 3% after the company's UK subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported a strong 32% year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in global sales at 34,877 units in the month of January 2013.

The other gainers were Bharti Airtel, TCS, TCS, HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, ONGC and Infosys up 1-2%.

Among other stocks, After losing 18% each on Tuesday, stocks of both Unitech and DB Realty recovered around 4% each.

Motherson Sumi Systems gained 5% to Rs 200 after the company said it is planning to raise funds by issuing equity shares to qualified institutional buyers and promoters of the company on preferential basis.

Fortis Healthcare advanced 5.5% to Rs 107 on reporting 26-fold rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 705 crore for the quarter ended December 31 2012 (Q3), mainly on account of exceptional one-time net gain of Rs 1,005 crore on dilution of stake in Religare Health Trust (RHT). It had posted net profit of Rs 27.02 crore for the same quarter of last fiscal.

The market breadth was positive. 1423 stocks advanced while 942 stocks declined on the BSE.