Sensex ends 154 points higher led by metals

Markets gained for the second straight session led by metal shares gained on hopes that the government may adopt ordinance route for mines sector reforms.

The 30-share Sensex provisionally ended up 154 points at 27,396 and the 50-share Nifty ended up 46 points at 8, 246.


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(Updated at 2:30PM)
Markets came off their day's highs amid profit taking in select bank shares even as metal shares gained on hopes that the government may adopt ordinance route for mines sector reforms.

At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 171 points at 27,413 and the 50-share Nifty was up 53 points at 8,254.

On the domestic front, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the economy is expected to grow "much better" in 2015-16 as compared with the current financial year.

The Indian rupee continued to trade weak against the US dollar and was down 11 paise at Rs 63.67. However, firm equity markets helped cap some of the losses.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities to the tune of Rs 40 crore.

BSE Metal index was the top sectoral gainer up 2.8% followed by Realty,  Auto, Power, Oil and Gas indices.

Reliance Industries was up 0.9%. The company said it has planned turnaround at its Nagothane manufacturing site. The cracker and some of the downstream units will be shut for approximately four weeks, starting around mid-January 2015.

ONGC was up 1.3% amid media reports suggest that the company and Cairn India are going to develop and produce gas from the Barmer block in Rajasthan.

Sesa Sterlite was up 4% after Kotak Securities has upgraded the stock to “BUY” from “REDUCE” at a target price of Rs 250. Among other metal shares, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Coal India were up 2-3% each.

FMCG majors ITC and Hindustan Unilever were up 0.5-1% each.

BHEL was up 1% amid media reports that the PSU engineering major is eyeing opportunities in Mozambique and Laos.

L&T pared early gains and was marginally up. The company said it has bagged an offshore contract valued at Rs 894 crore from the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

Bharti Airtel also trimmed most of its gains and was trading 0.1% higher after it decided against launching the recently announced special data packs for voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls.

Bank shares witnessed profit taking with SBI, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank down 0.1-0.3% each.

Auto major M&M was down 0.5%.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.9% and Small-cap index was up 0.7%.

Market breadth was strong with 1,675 gainers and 1,110 losers on the BSE.