Mumbai, India (BBN) – The Sensex and Nifty were trading higher by nearly 0.4 per cent due to value-buying in select blue-chips and firm Asian cues.
Brokers said that value-buying in recent losers and a firm trend in other Asian markets tracking overnight trends in US and Europe, triggered fresh spell of buying on the domestic bourses here, reporta The Hindu Business Line.
At 12:40pm, the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 122.15 points or 0.46 per cent at 26,848.70 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 33.55 points or 0.41 per cent at 8,269.60.
Among BSE sectoral indices, oil & gas index gained the most by 1.00 per cent, followed by consumer durables 0.85 per cent, auto 0.71 per cent and infrastructure 0.64 per cent, while only realty index was down 0.36 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were Tata Motors (+2.45 per cent), Tata Steel (+1.48 per cent), GAIL (+1.36 per cent), Asian Paints (+1.09 per cent) and ICICI Bank (+0.97 per cent), while the major losers were Axis Bank (-0.97 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (-0.45 per cent), Bharti Airtel (-0.38 per cent), Sun Pharma (-0.29 per cent) and Power Grid (-0.21 per cent).
A report by Angel Broking said: “US markets had a mixed session with energy stocks moving downward on lower oil prices.
The NYSE Arca Natural gas Index fell 2.4 per cent, while the NYSE Arca Oil & Gas Index slid 1.4 per cent.
Lack of economic data as well as upcoming earnings updates from financial giants Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Wells Fargo (WFC) kept trading activity low during the session.
The FTSE closed positive in spite of negative news regarding Brexit and economic data.
The British pound drifted lower on worries over the likelihood of a “hard Brexit”, after comments by the UK Prime Minister.
British house price inflation accelerated unexpectedly at the end of the year. House prices climbed 6.5 per cent in three months to December YoY.
This was against an expected inflation of 5.8 per cent.”
BBN/MS/SK