Sensex gains 279 points, Reliance Industries up by 3.8 pc

Equity benchmark indices traded with a positive bias during early hours on Wednesday with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries being the star performer after gaining 3.8 per cent.

A day earlier, Reliance became the first Indian company to cross-market capitalisation of Rs 9.5 lakh crore after its stock rallied over 3 per cent intra-day to hit a fresh all-time high.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S & P Sensex was up by 279 points at 40,749 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 71 points to 12,011. Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty auto, financial service, FMCG and PSU bank in the red. But Nifty pharma was up by 1.4 per cent.

Among stocks, Reliance was up by 3.79 per cent at Rs 1,567 per share while IndusInd Bank gained by 3.2 per cent at Rs 1,437.50.

Pharma majors Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's and Cipla were up by 1.9 per cent, 1.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively. The other gainers included Larsen & Toubro, Coal India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Adani Ports and Tata Consultancy Services.

However, Bharti Infratel fell by 3.6 per cent. Britannia, Yes Bank, Eicher Motors and GAIL also traded in the negative zone.

Meanwhile, Asian shares stumbled amid conflicting messages on the US-China trade talks. Late Tuesday, US President Donald Trump had threatened to raise tariffs further if China does not agree to a deal that he liked.

The mood in share markets was subdued with MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan off 0.7 per cent. Japan's Nikkei fell by 0.8 per cent and Shanghai blue chips by 0.3 per cent.