Sensex tops 21,000 mark in early trades, Bharti Airtel up 4%

Markets extended gains to open marginally higher led by heavyweights

Markets extended gains to open marginally higher on Wednesday and the Sensex topped the 21,000 mark in early trades led by gains in index heavyweights ICICI Bank, ITC and Bharti Airtel.

At 9:35AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 85 points at 21,014 after hitting an intra-day high of 21,038 and the 50-share Nifty was up 27 points at 6,248

The rupee fell against the US dollar in early trades and was trading at Rs 61.49 compared to its previous close of Rs 61.32.

Asian markets firmed up tracking overnight gains on Wall Street on expectations that the US Fed would continue its monetary stimulus measures. The Nikkei was up 1.2%, Hang Seng gained 0.8%, Shanghai Composite was up 0.8% and Straits Times gained 0.3%.

Rate-sensitive sectors such as Realty, Bankex and Auto indices were among the top gainers in the sectoral indices on BSE followed Power, Oil and Gas indices.

ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, ITC, HDFC and Reliance Industries contributed the most to the Sensex gains.

Bharti Airtel was up 3.9% after the company today reported Q2 cosolidated net profit of Rs 512 crore. The revenue stood at Rs 21,324 crore in the quarter. Forex loss at was at Rs 342 crore. The company said that the continued depreciation of rupee contributed to forex loss. Consolidated EBITDA margin came in at 32%.

ITC was marginally up on short covering at lower levels after profit taking was seen in the previous few sessions. In the financial pack, ICICI Bank was up 1.8%, SBI and HDFC were up 0.5% each. Sensex losers include, Infosys, HDFC Bank, L&T and Wipro amid profit taking at higher levels.

Among other shares, Tata Communications was up 10% at Rs 251 after the company reported a net profit of Rs 80.36 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, on the back of growth in managed services and voice offerings. The company had reported a net loss of Rs 274.24 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, Tata Communications said in a statement.

In the broader market, the BSE-Mid cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.6% each. Market breadth was strong with 709 gainers and 287 losers on the BSE.