Sensex trades marginally higher; markets await IIP data

Markets opened the day marginally higher led by gains in technology and banking names. The Nifty was trading higher by 12 points, while the Sensex was higher by 50 points (to know what is Sensex click).

Among the stocks that gained in early trade from the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, ACC and Reliance Infra. Top losers from the space were HDFC, Asian Paints, Cipla and Kotak Mahindra.

Coal India was trading marginally lower after reports that a Inter-ministerial Group (IMG) approved 10 per cent equity sale in the company, which is expected to fetch over Rs 17,000 crore to the government.

Reliance Industries was down despite reports of Chairman Mukesh Ambani saying that the company will invest over $5 billion in "a series of projects" to reverse the trend of falling output at KG basin.

Technology stocks continued to rally with Infosys and TCS among the gainers. Today's upmove follows an upmove on Thursday after a good set of results by Cognizant.

PSU banking stocks continued to find buyers at lower levels. Prominent gainers from the space were Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank and State Bank of India.

The Nifty mid cap stocks were trading marginally higher with the mid cap index gaining 0.50 per cent in early trade. Gainers from the space were Apollo Tyres, Indian Hotels, Punj Lloyd, Reliance Power and Unitech.

Realty stocks also saw some buying interest with prominent gainers from the space including DB Realty, Sobha Developers and Parsvnath.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia rallied sharply led by a surge in the Japanese Nikkei by almost 3 per cent.

GoodReturns.in