Nifty hovers near 6750; RIL, Tata Motors top gainers

Benchmark indices regained lost ground marginally after slipping initial gains in afternoon trades, led by buying in heavyweight oil & gas, technology and auto shares.

Foreign fund inflows continued unabated on Tuesday. FIIs bought local shares worth Rs 385.66 a day earlier.

Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, TCS, Bharti Airtel and ONGC  were up between 1-2% and remained the top heavyweight gainers at this hour. Losses in ITC, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, HUL and Coal India, however capped gains.

At 02:38 PM, the Sensex was higher by 77 points at 22,524 mark and the Nifty surged 22 points to 6,742 levels.  

Asian share markets added to their recent rally on Wednesday as investors chose to accentuate the positive in a mixed bag of global economic data, pressuring the safe haven yen to a 10-week trough.

Even sluggishness in China is now considered favorably since it adds to the case for stimulus, and there are signs Beijing is hastening infrastructure spending in response.

Trading was cautious, however, ahead of Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank and Friday's U.S. jobs numbers, both of which could move markets in major ways.

The rupee is trading at 59.64 versus Friday's close of 59.91/92 as bunched-up dollar inflows and record high domestic shares aid sentiment. The unit rose to as high as 59.60, its strongest since July 30.

On the sectoral front, BSE Realty index surged by over 2% followed by healthcare, Oil & Gas, TECk, Auto, Consumer Durables, IT, Power and Capital Goods, all gaining over 1% each. However, BSE FMCG and Metal indices have slumped between 0.5-1.5%.

PSU OMCs edged higher as the under-recovery on High Speed Diesel (HSD) and PDS Kerosene and Domestic LPG applicable declined. Lower crude oil prices and higher rupee also aided gains in shares PSU OMCs. BPCL (up 0.91%), HPCL (up 0.82%) and Indian Oil Corporation (up 0.79%) gained.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) rose to hit 52-week high after the company on Tuesday.

Axis Bank is trading lower by 1.3% at Rs 1,449 on the NSE after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) restricted foreign institutional investors (FIIs) from buying additional shares in the bank as their shareholding has reached the limit.

Among other shares, Wockhardt has surged nearly 16% to Rs 533, its sharpest intra-day gain since September 2013, on back of heavy volumes on the BSE.

SKS Microfinance has soared 13% to Rs 245, extending its 9% rally in past three trading sessions on the BSE, after the company said it has completed the thirteenth securitization transaction during the financial year 2013-14 (FY14) of Rs 159.80 crore

Aurobindo Pharma has moved higher by 3% to Rs 550, also its new high on the BSE, after the company said it has completed the acquisition of certain commercial operations of Actavis plc in Western Europe.

The broader markets are outperforming the benchmark indices- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices have gained by nearly 1% each.

The market breadth in BSE remained firm with 1,739 shares advancing and 923 shares declining.