)
Benchmark shares indices continued to trade firm in late morning trades on Wednesday led by Sun Pharma and rebound in Maruti Suzuki following sharp correction yesterday.
At 11:35AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 79 points at 20,763 and the 50-share Nifty was up 28 points at 6,154.
The was trading strong in morning trade due to dollar sale by custodian banks and bullish equities. The Indian currency was trading at Rs 62.13 compared with previous close of Rs 62.52 per dollar. The rupee is seen trading range bound ahead of outcome of FOMC meet.
Asian markets firmed on Wednesday amid a monetary tightening measures by the Turkish central bank which surprisingly hiked the overnight lending rate by 425 basis points to 12%. Japan's benchmark Nikkei was up 2.3%, Shanghai Composite gained 0.4%, Hang Seng was up nearly 1% while Straits Times was down 0.8%.
The BSE Healthcare index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices up 2% followed by Auto, Capital Goods indices among others. Metal Index was the sole loser down 0.8%.
Sun Pharma was up nearly 4% contributing the most to the Sensex gains while Dr Reddys Labs and Cipla were up 1-2% each.
Maruti Suzuki continued to remain as the top Sensex gainer after the stock rebounded today and was up 6% amid short covering. The stock had witnessed a sharp fall on Tuesday after its board’s decision to accept Suzuki Motor Corp’s (SMC) proposal to contract manufacture vehicles from the proposed manufacturing facility in Gujarat.
Among other auto majors, M&M, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp were up 0.5-1% each.
ICICI Bank was up 1.2% ahead of its results later today.
In the capital goods segment, BHEL and L&T were up 1-3% each.
Metal shares witnessed profit taking after recent gains. Tata Steel, Sesa Sterlite and Hindalco were down 1-2% each.
The broader markets outperformed the benchmark indices with BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.7% each.
Market breadth improved further with 1,259 gainers and 789 losers on the BSE.
