Sensex down over 300 points from day's high; HDFC, Infosys drag

Benchmark indices which had earlier hit fresh record highs pared most of the gains in late morning trades with the Nifty slipping into negative terrain dragged by Infosys and HDFC.
 
Earlier, the Sensex touched the life-time high level of 28,822.37 and Nifty reached all-time high mark of 8,626.95.
 
 At 11:25AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 44 points at 28,487 and the 50-share Nifty was flat at 8,437.
 

In the broader market, BSE midcap index has underperformed with a gain 0.1% and smallcap index has outperformed with a gain of 0.4% their larger peers.  Market breadth in BSE is positive with 1,245 advances against 1,097 declines.

 
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 391.07 crore on Wednesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.
 
 Buzzing Stocks

BSE FMCG index has gained more than 2% in a subdued market.  BSE Oil & Gas and Healthcare indices have posted marginal gains of 0.1% each.
 
BSE Consumer Durables index, down 0.8% followed by BSE Power index, down 0.4%. have lost the most.
 
ITC has emerged as the top gainer with an advance of more than 4% on reports that the government is likely to put on hold its earlier Health Ministry proposal to ban the sale of loose cigarettes.

 
Cipla has gained around 2.5%. Cipla and Meda pharmaceuticals have sued Apotex, the largest Canadian owned pharmaceutical company, to enforce the Orange-Book listed patents covering Dymista (azelastine HCl/fluticasone propionate) Nasal Spray.
 
Sun Pharma has lost around 0.5%. Ranbaxy which is in the process of being acquired by Sun Pharma came under pressure after Germany barred the export of a particular antibiotic from its Madhya Pradesh facility.
 
ONGC has gained over 1%. Oil Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan speaking on the side-lines of an industry event ruled out the possibility of exempting ONGC from subsidy pay-outs. Earlier, the minister had informed the Rajya Sabha about government’s plans to rework the subsidy sharing formula for ONGC.

 
ICICI has gained around 0.8%.Earlier, the stock touched fresh record high of Rs 366 on BSE after the stock turned ex-stock split today. The private sector lender had subdivided the face value of its equity shares to Rs 2 from Rs 10.

HDFC Bank has gained around 0.5%. Meanwhile, HDFC Bank has become the first bank to rule out a joint venture partnership with any applicant for a payment bank.
 
“We will not do a joint venture for a payment bank. We are a full bank ourselves and so we don’t need to form an alliance,” said Aditya Puri, MD, HDFC Bank.

 
BHEL has lost 0.8% on profit-booking. Yesterday, the stock had surged on successful commissioning of India's first phase shifting transformer by BHEL.