Strong market breadth

The market held firm near day's high in mid-morning trade. At 11:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 322.13 points or 0.90% at 36,129.41. The Nifty 50 index was up 94.65 points or 0.88% at 10,874.45. IT and pharma shares advance.

Key indices started Friday's session on a positive note tracking firm global cues. Indices extended gains as the session progressed and hit fresh intraday high in morning trade. Indices held firm near day's high in mid-morning trade.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.79%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.78%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 1488 shares rose and 679 shares fell. A total of 116 shares were unchanged.

IT shares were in demand. Hexaware Technologies (up 2.50%), Persistent Systems (up 1.53%), MphasiS (up 1.19%), Wipro (up 0.90%), HCL Technologies (up 0.74%), Tech Mahindra (up 0.56%), MindTree (up 0.32%), TCS (up 0.17%) and Infosys (up 0.15%), edged higher. Oracle Financial Services Software was down 0.06%.

Pharmaceuticals shares advanced. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 2.96%), Wockhardt (up 1.65%), Cadila Healthcare (up 1.61%), Lupin (up 1.43%), Strides Shasun (up 1.42%), Aurobindo Pharma (up 1.27%), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (up 1.22%), IPCA Laboratories (up 1.22%), Cipla (up 1.07%), Piramal Enterprises (up 1.06%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (up 0.77%), Divi's Laboratories (up 0.67%) and Alkem Laboratories (up 0.5%), edged higher. GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals was down 0.17%.

On the economic front, India's fiscal deficit in the first eight months of FY2018-2019 rose to Rs 7.17 lakh crore, hitting around 115% of the budgeted target for the current financial year, government data showed. The government had set a fiscal deficit target of Rs 6.24 lakh crore for FY2019.

Meanwhile, the government has revised the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of 23 items of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) items and has introduced MSP for 17 new MFP items. The 23 items whose MSP has been revised include those Minor Forest Produce items which have been covered under the scheme since its inception in the year 2013-14. The revised MSP also includes those MFP items which were announced on 31 October 2016 except Palash Flower (wet variety).

Overseas, Asian shares were trading higher following a turbulent session on Wall Street. In US, stocks erased heavy losses to end higher in a late-session turnaround that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average end more than 800 points above its session low. The rebound came after stocks initially struggled to build on the previous session's sharp rally.

On the US data front, first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 1,000 to 216,000 in the week ended December 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. Further, the Conference Board said its consumer-confidence index dropped to 128.1 this month from a revised 136.4 in November.

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