Sensex up nearly 100 points; Cipla, ICICI Bank top gainers

Benchmark indices continue to trade positive led by buying among capital goods and financial shares. However, selling among IT and metal shares has capped the upside gains.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said fiscal deficit targets for current year are likely to be met and manufacturing sector is showing turnaround signs.

At 13:15 PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 88 points at 29,366 and the 50-share Nifty was at 8,850 trading lower by 14 points.

However, the broader markets are outperforming the benchmark indices- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are up 0.3-1%.

Market breadth in BSE is negative with 1,388 declines against 1,225 advances.

Meanwhile, the rupee was quoting at 61.47 against the US currency in late morning deals today amid volatile trading on the back of higher dollar overseas.

On the global front, most Asian share markets firmed on Tuesday and the euro clung to rare gains, relieved that European equities had weathered Greece's election outcome without too much disruption.

Japan's Nikkei gained 1.4%, while Australia's main index added 0.8%. Other moves were mostly modest and MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat on the day.

Chinese markets continued their recent erratic path and the Shanghai index slipped 2.2%.

Back home, BSE Capital Goods, Consumer Durables, Realty, Auto and Bankex indices are up 0.5-1.5%. However, BSE IT and Metal indices are down 1-2%.

Main gainers on the Sensex are Cipla, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki and L&T.

Capital goods shares BHEL and L&T were up over 2% each on hopes of order inflows after the Indo-US treaty for civilian nuclear projects.

On the losing side, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Coal India, Infosys, M&M and Hindalco have plunged between 3-4%.

IT stocks are under pressure in today’s session. Infosys has declined around 2.5% and TCS and Wipro are trading flat. Wipro has been awarded a multi-year strategic infrastructure management contract by AIB, a leading bank in Ireland offering a full range of personal and corporate banking services.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday filed a status report showing its further investigation in the Hindalco coal block allocation matter, allegedly involving industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former coal secretary P C Parakh.

Shares of Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) have gained 4% to Rs 83 on National Stock Exchange (NSE) after Macquarie upgrade the stock to Outperform, raising target price to Rs 104.

Union Bank of India has dipped 6% to Rs 236 after reporting a lower than expected net profit at Rs 302 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2014 (Q3), due to higher provisioning for bad loans and employee cost.