Nifty holds 8,350 ahead of F&O expiry; Vedanta, Cairn India up 2.5%

Vedanta was the top Sensex gainer after the company initiated the merger process with Cairn India

Markets continue to remain range-bound amid lack of fresh buying ahead of the expiry of June derivative contracts later today.

At 12:55PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 72 points at 27,802 and the 50-share Nifty was up 9 points at 8,370.

In the broader markets, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were trading flat with positive bias.

Market breadth was marginally negative with 1,179 losers and 1,148 gainers on the BSE.

The Indian rupee was trading slightly lower at 63.60 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of 63.59 amid demand for the US currency from importers.

SECTORS AND STOCKS

BSE Capital Goods, Oil and Gas indices were the top sectoral gainers while FMCG and IT indices were the top losers.

Vedanta is the top Sensex gainer up over 2.5% after the company along with Cairn India initiated the merger process by filing the scheme of arrangement along wih the relevant documents with the stock exchanges. Cairn India was also up 2.5%.

BHEL extended gains and was up 1.5%. The PSU engineering major on Tuesday said that it has commissioned a 250-MW unit of NTPC's Bongaigaon thermal power plant in the Kokrajhar district in Assam.

Auto shares witnessed renewed buying interest with Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp up 0.5-1.1% each.

Financial shares were trading with marginal gains. SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were up 0.1-0.6% each.

Among the index heavyweights, HDFC was up 1.6% while Reliance Industries was up 0.8%.

IT shares were trading mixed. Infosys trimmed early gains and was trading flat. Reports suggest that it could soon become the most influential stock on the Nifty, Sensex and MSCI Index after SEBI said that existing promoters may be reclassified as public if a company becomes professionally managed and does not have any identifiable promoter. TCS and Wipro were down 0.5-1.4% each.

Among other shares, Shares of JMT Auto have locked in upper circuit of 20% at Rs 34.90 on the BSE after the stock turned ex-stock split from Rs 10 to Rs 2 each.