Markets trade firm, Sensex up 200 pts

Markets extended Friday's gains in late-morning trades owing mostly to buying in IT stocks. The BSE Sensex is at 16,439, up 206 points and the Nifty is at 4,943, up 55 points. The Nifty played catch up and rallied on Friday and touched a high of 4,922.

Earlier in the day, the market had opened flat tracking subdued global cues as cautiousness prevailed ahead of quarterly earnings season. So far, the BSE benchmark index has touched a low of 16,231 and a high of 16,452.

BSE IT index is at 5,320, up nearly 2%, ahead of Infosys results. Infosys has accounted for a 22-point gain to the Sensex. As a result of rupee depreciation, the company is expected to revise EPS growth upwards and report good dollar guidance.
Other gainers from the IT space are  MphasiS, HCL Technologies and Tech mahindra, up 1-2% each.

Among the other sectors, Realty, Oil & Gas and Metal indices are leading the gains, up nearly 2% each.

Essar Oil, Reliance Industries, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Cairn India, up 1-2% each, are the prominent gainers from the Oil & Gas space.

JSW Steel, Hindalco Industries, Tata Steel and Sterlite Industries, up 1-2% each, are the gainers among the Metal stocks.

On the Sensex, Tata Motor, Hindalco Industries, Tata Steel, BHEL and Reliance Industries, 2-3% each, are the prominent gainers. The losers from the pack include Maruti Suzuki, Larsen & Toubro, SUn Pharma Industries, SBI and Hindustan Unilever.

Among individual stocks, Reliance Capital has moved up 4% at Rs 333 after announcing completion of the transaction for sale of a 26% stake in Reliance Life Insurance to Nippon Life Insurance.

Tata Coffee is trading higher by 7% at Rs 863 on reports that Starbucks Corp is close to finalising an equity joint venture with the company for opening coffee shops in India.

JSW Steel has gained nearly 2% at Rs 578 in morning trades, after it announced plans to raise about Rs 650 crore debt in international markets to fund an expansion programme at its Chile iron ore project.

The overall market breadth is positive as 1,532 stocks have advanced against 793 declining ones, on the Bombay Stock Exchange.