Nifty around 7,750; telecom stocks gain

RIL, HDFC twins and Bharti Airtel lead Sensex rally

Markets were firm in noon trades with heavyweights like Reliance Industries and HDFC twins leading the rally. At 1255 hrs, the Sensex was up 233 points at 25,948 and the Nifty gained 62 points to trade at 7,746.

In the broader markets, the small and midcap indices gained over 0.5% each, underperforming the BSE benchmark index which was up nearly a percent.

Foreign Institutional Investors remained buyers for the fourth straight session on Monday with net equity purchases of Rs 161 crore.

The Indian rupee was trading higher at Rs 60.18 against the previous close of Rs 60.30 tracking weakness in the US dollar against Asian currencies while inflows by foreign funds in equities also boosted sentiment.

Sectors & Stocks

Among the sectoral indices, Capital goods index marginally down by 0.05% was the only index in red.

Shares of telecom services providers such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications gained upto 5% after the telecom regulator authority of India (TRAI) recommended allowing sharing of all categories of airwaves held by operators, the move could help companies to reduce cost of mobile services.

Bharti Airtel was up 4%, RCom and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) gained 3% each.

Reliance Industries gained another 3% at Rs 1,031, extending its Monday’s 2% gain post its better than expected quarterly numbers.

Hindalco, HDFC twins, Coal India and Tata Motors up 2-3% were the other top gainers of the hour.

L&T, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and Bajaj Auto down 0.2-0.4% were the only names in red among Sensex-30.

Markets breadth was positive on BSE. 1,543 stocks advanced while 1,160 stocks declined.

Asian Markets

Asian stocks touched a three-year peak on Tuesday, despite lingering concerns about crises in Ukraine and Gaza, while the yen eased against the dollar and the euro.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5 percent to its highest since 2011, while Japan's Nikkei stock average rose about 1 percent after a national holiday closed markets on Monday.