Nifty ends above 8,500 led by banks

Markets ended higher with state-owned banks leading the gains after the government proposed capital infusion to the tune of nearly Rs 20,000 crore in the next two months to boost their capital base. Further, hopes of a rate cut by the RBI at its policy meet tomorrow also aided sentiment.

Provisionally, the Sensex ended up 45 points at 28,159 and Nifty ended up 5 points at 8,538.

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(updated at 2:30pm)

The benchmark indices are trading in the green this afternoon, ignoring the unsupportive cues across the global peers. The rate-sensitive auto and banking pack are leading the gains on the bourses ahead of the monetary policy review meeting scheduled on Tuesday.

At 2.30pm, the Sensex was at 28,215, higher by 101 points or 0.3% and the Nifty was at 8,550, up 17 points.

While the BSE Sensex has been confined to a range of around 150 points, the broader markets are witnessing a lot of action; the BSE midcap index has gained up 0.7% and smallcap Index is up 1%. More than 200 stocks, including Coal India, Maruti Suzuki India, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, LIC Housing Finance, Emami, Godrej Consumer Products, Amara Raja Batteries and Bajaj Finserv, have hit their respective 52-week highs on the BSE. The market breadth is strong, with 1,756 advancing stocks as against 1,037 declines.

However, the India VIX has soared around 7% during the day. As VIX is a measure of the market's expectation of volatility over the next 30 calendar days, a spike of this sort could hint at volatile times in the immediate future.

GLOBAL NEWS

In Greece, the Athex Composite reopened with a 23% loss at 615.12 after a five-week shutdown. Trading on the Greece stock market was suspended on 29 June 2015 after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on the country's bailout terms.

European stocks edged lower in early trades as investors tracked steep losses in the Greek stock exchange and digest weak manufacturing data from China. Key benchmark indices in UK, France and Germany had edged lower by upto 0.5% each.

Asian stocks had a weak session across the board amid signs of a deepening slowdown in China's economy, the world's second-largest economy. The key benchmark indices in Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea fell around 1% each.

Oil prices fell in Asia on persistent concerns about the global supply glut after the OPEC cartel's indication that it will not budge from its current lofty output levels.

SECTORS & STOCKS

Select banking and auto stocks are hogging the limelight in noon trades, with SBI, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors counting among the top gainers on the Sensex. BHEL, ITC and Dr Reddy's are also having a strong session.

The losing side is led by M&M, Coal India, Lupin and HDFC.