Markets trading near day highs

RIL, software shares lead Sensex gains

Markets were trading near their day highs in late morning deals, tracking gains in Asia, led by oil and software shares.

At 11:32AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 101 points at 19,425 after touching an intra-day high of 19,445 whereas the 50-share Nifty gained 32 points at 5,903 levels after touching an intra-day high of 5,910 so far.

Asian markets were trading higher on Friday led by Japan's Nikkei on the back of weaker yen. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.6% to 2,218, Singapore's Straits Times rose 0.1% to 3,188, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.2% to 22,663 while Japan's Nikkei gained 0.8% to 10,409.

The sectoral indices on the BSE was led by the Oil & Gas index up 1.6% after the gradual hike in diesel prices proposed by the government. Other indices which gained include, Power, Capital Goods, IT, Realty and Metal indices up 0.7-1% each.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was up 1% leading gains on the Sensex along with PSU exploration major ONGC. ONGC was up 2.6% on hopes that hike in retail diesel prices would benefit the company on account of lower subsidy outgo to oil marketing companies.

Among sofware shares, TCA was up 0.8%, Infosys and Wipro were both up nearly 1% each.

Oil marketing companies continued to trade higher as the proposed gradual hike in diesel and kerosene prices would help them reduce their under-recoveries. Bhart Petroleum was up 4.4%, Hindustan Petroleum was up 4.1% and Indian Oil Corp was up 3% at Rs 269.

Among other shares, Bharti Infratel is trading at Rs 198, down 10% to its issue price of Rs 220 on the National Stock Exchange. The Sunil Bharti Mittal led-company which raised about Rs 4,118 crore through initial public offer (IPO) has fixed the issue price at Rs 220 per share for institutional investors, while giving a discounted price of Rs 210 for retail investors.

Manaksia Ltd surged over 13% to Rs 57 after the company said its board approved the restructuring plans of the company. The transferee companies will issue one equity share of face value of Re 1 each to the shareholders of Manaksia for every share of the face value of Rs 2 each held by them on the record date, to be decided and fixed at a later date, it added.

In the broader market, the Mid-cap index was up 0.8% and the Small-cap index gained 0.6%.

Market breadth continued to remain strong with 1,510 gainers and 846 losers on the BSE.