Sensex up 110 points; railway stocks rally

Meanwhile, weakness in banks, FMCG and Oil & Gas scrips cap gains

Markets extend gains in early noon trades with the benchmark indices trading near record highs ahead of Modi’s maiden Budget. At 1125 hrs, the Sensex was up 110 points at 26,072 and the Nifty edged higher by 27 points to trade at 7,778.
 
Broader markets too advanced with the smallcap index up 0.7% and the midcap index gained 0.3%, almost in line with the BSE benchmark index.
 
Bankex, Oil & Gas and FMCG were the only indices in the negative territory, down 0.1-0.6%.
 

Meanwhile, IT index gained nearly 2% on the back of buying interest in IT heavyweights like TCS and Infosys, which is expected to announce its quarterly numbers later this week. Both the stock are up 2% each.

 
From financial space, HDFC twins were lower by 0.5-1%. SBI, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank were down upto 0.3%.
 
Oil & Gas majors, RIL, ONGC and GAIL were down 0.5-1%. From the FMCG pocket, both ITC and HUL dipped 0.3% each.
 
Tata Power, Dr Reddys Lab, Bharti Airtel, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors and Coal India up 1-3% were the major gainers.
 
Railway related stocks continued their upward march and were trading higher by up to 7%, second day in a row ahead of the Railway Budget which is scheduled for tomorrow. The Railway Budget is likely to focus on modernisation and devise new strategies for attracting private investment.

 
Texmaco Rail & Engineering, Titagarh Wagons, Kalindee Rail Nirman, Kernex Microsystems and Stone India are up between 4-8%.
 
Shares of all three listed rating agencies – ICRA, CRISIL and CARE – were in focus and trading at their multi-years high on the BSE amid heavy trading volumes.
 
ICRA rallied as much as 10% to Rs 3,199, while CRISIL moved up by 5% to Rs 2,000. CARE, on the other hand, rallied 2.3% to Rs 1,110.
 
ICRA and CRISIL were trading at their record highs, while CARE was just 4% away from its all-time high of Rs 1,156 touched in June.

 
The market breadth was positive on BSE. 1,565 stocks advanced while 1,114 stocks declined.