The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs in noon deals as heavyweights like HDFC Bank, Nestle India, Sun Pharma, ITC and UltraTech Cement came under a mild selling pressure. Earlier in the day, Sensex rose as much as 640 points and Nifty 50 index briefly moved above its important psychological level of 10,300 as places of worship, malls and restaurants re-opened in most states today as part of what it called "Unlock1".
As of 12:59 pm, the Sensex was up 151 points or 0.44 per cent at 34,438 and the Nifty rose 0.46 per cent or 46 points to 10,189.
The government had on Thursday announced new rules for allowing shopping malls, restaurants, hotels and places of worship to open gradually following the nationwide lockdown. The guidelines, which come into effect from today, include measures like staggering visitors to malls and no touching of idols at religious places.
Meanwhile, seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty IT index's nearly 2 per cent gain. Nifty Private Bank, Realty and Bank sector gauges also rose between 0.8-1.2 per cent each.
On the other hand, Nifty Pharma index was top loser, down 1.4 per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as the Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.73 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 1.3 per cent.
GAIL India was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose over 7 per cent to Rs 105.10. IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Bajaj Finance, Indian Oil, ONGC, Tata Motors, Bajaj Finserv, Titan and Hero MotoCorp were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, Zee Entertainment, Shree Cements, Cipla, Eicher Motors, HDFC Bank and Sun Pharma were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,822 shares were advancing while 661 were declining on the BSE.
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