Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs; Jet Airways Rallies For Second Straight Day

Domestic equity benchmark indices pared early gains in afternoon trade on Tuesday. Buying in Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, ONGC and Axis Bank supported the markets, however weakness in Infosys, ITC, Tata Consultancy Services and HDFC Bank kept the upside in check. The S&P BSE Sensex rose as much as 153.84 points or 0.41 per cent to hit 37,962.75 at the day's strongest point, and the NSE Nifty 50 index advanced 48.7 points or 0.43 per cent to an intraday high of 11,402.95. The mild gains came a day after the equity benchmarks registered their worst single-day drop of this month.

At 12:08 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex traded 0.09 per cent or 35.43 points higher at 37,844.34 while the NSE Nifty 50 was at 11,367.35, up 13.10 points from the previous close.

At that time, sixteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE traded higher led by the S&P BSE Realty, Energy, Power and Utilities, trading around 1-1.50 per cent higher each. On the flipside, the S&P BSE Information Technology Index was the top loser, trading 1.24 per cent lower.

Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest as the S&P BSE MidCap Index rose 0.56 per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap Index advanced 0.39 per cent.

In the Nifty 50 basket of shares, 30 were trading higher as against 20 laggards.

Vedanta was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, trading up 2.36 per cent at Rs 172.25 on the NSE. Indiabulls Housing Finance, GAIL, NTPC and Zee Entertainment were among the top advancers, trading between 1.84 per cent and 2.07 per cent higher.

On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, UPL and ITC - trading between 1.03 per cent adn 2.24 per cent lower - were among the top Nifty50 losers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,256 shares were advancing while 1,102 were declining on the BSE.