Sensex up nearly 100 points; TCS, HDFC up over 1%

Benchmark share indices firmed up in late morning trades led by financials and index heavyweights Reliance Industries and ITC.
Meanwhile, markets are likely to remain volatile in late trades ahead of the expiry of January F&O expiry tomorrow.

At 11:35AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 99 points at 29,670 and the 50-share Nifty was up 40 points at 8,950.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 954 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

The rupee was trading lower at 61.45 to the US dollar compared to previous close of 61.41.

BSE Consumer Durables index was the top gainer up 1.7% followed by Realty, Healthcare, IT, Power, Oil and Gas indices. However, capital goods and metal indices were the losers.

Renewed buying interest was seen in IT majors with TCS and Infosys contributing the most to the Sensex gains.

In the financial segment, HDFC, SBI and ICICI Bank were up 0.6-1.4% each.

Maruti Suzuki extended gains and was up 2% after it announced an 18 per cent year-on-year jump in net profit to Rs 802 crore for the three-month period. According to media reports, Maruti Suzuki aims to dedicate a capacity of up to 100,000 at its Gurgaon plant to a new light commercial vehicle (LCV). Likely to be called the ‘Super Carry’, the LCV will be launched in the April-June quarter.

SBI was up 1.4%. According to media reports, the bank plans to raise share capital of up to Rs 15,000 crore through an equity offering to support loan growth and meet capital adequacy requirements.

Pharma shares are trading mixed. Sun Pharma has gained over 1%, however, Cipla has declined nearly 1% on profit-booking and Dr Reddys Lab is up 0.8% ahead of its Q3 results which will be released tomorrow.

Bharti Airtel has declined over 2%. Bharti Airtel has commissioned Nokia Networks to expand its 4G presence to six new circles. The deal marks India’s first FDD-LTE deployment on 1800 MHz that will witness the launch of super-fast mobile broadband in 6 circles.

Tata Motors was down 1.5% on concerns of equity dilution after the company said it would seek shareholder approval to raise up to Rs 7,500 crore via rights issue of equity shares and DVR shares adding that the funds will be used for expansion and reduction of debt.

Capital goods shares L&T and BHEL witnessed profit taking after gains in the previous session. L&T and BHEL were down 0.4% each.

Sensex losers include, HUL, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel among others.

Among others, Shares of Godrej Properties has rallied 4% to Rs 284, extending its previous day’s gain of around 3% on the BSE, after reporting a 27% year-on-year (yoy) jump in the consolidated net profit at Rs 47 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2014 (Q3), on back of strong revenues.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap index were up 0.3-0.8% each.

Market breadth was still weak with 1,231 losers and 1,169 gainers on the BSE.