Markets turn choppy; Nifty reclaims 7,950

Markets were seen choppy after the first hour of trade with index heavyweights leading the recovery after most of the early gains were erased on profit taking at higher levels. However, caution is seen ahead of the outcome of the US Fed two-day policy meet which ends later today.

At 10:15AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 103 points at 26,596 and the 50-share Nifty was up 32 points at 7,964.

Meanwhile, foreign funds sold shares worth Rs 829 crore in the cash segment on Tuesday, as per provisional data on the stock exchange.

The rupee was trading higher at Rs 60.98 against the previous close of Rs 61.05. The rupee recovered on Tuesday from a one-month low hit in the previous session on bargain-hunting, but sentiment was broadly cautious ahead of the outcome of the Federal Reserve's meeting.

Asian shares fimed up on Wednesday tracking overnight gains on Wall Street and on expectations that the US Fed won't raise interest rates soon. Japanese shares were trading with marginal gains while Shanghai Composite pared gains and was trading flat with negative bias. Straits Times also trimmed some of the gains and was up 0.5% while Hang Seng shares continued to trade with gains of over 1%.

BSE Metal index was the top sectoral gainer up 0.7% followed by Realty, Oil and Gas, FMCG and IT indices among others.

In the Sensex pack, index heavyweights led the gains with Reliance Ind, ICICI Bank and Infosys up over 0.6-0.9% each. TCS was up nearly 0.9%.

Other Sensex gainers include, M&M, Sun Pharma and HDFC among others.

FMCG majors ITC rebounded from its early lows and was trading 0.8% higher while HUL was trading with marginal losses.

In the financial pack, ICICI Bank and SBI were up 0.5-0.9% each.

Maruti Suzuki was down 0.3%. The company informed that its Manesar facility crosses 25 Lakh production milestone. The Manesar facility achieved the feat in 7 years and 8 months. A glistening grey Swift Zxi was the 2.5 milionth vehicle that rolled out from the Manesar B Line, the company said in a release.

Among other shares, Lupin has dipped 1% to Rs 1,348 extending its yesterday’s decline of 5%, after the pharmaceutical company announced that it has entered into a long term strategic partnership with Merck Serono, the Biopharmaceutical division of Merck.

Aurobindo Pharma has risen by over 1% at Rs 865 after the company received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to manufacture and market Amoxicilin for oral suspension.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap was trading flat with negative bias and Small-cap index was trading with marginal gains up 0.1%.

Market breadth was firm with 1,064 advances and 1,003 declines on the BSE.