The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs in noon trading as heavyweights like HDFC Bank, Infosys, HCL Technologies and ITC came under selling pressure. Earlier in the day, benchmarks staged a gap up opening wherein the Sensex rose as much as 452 points and Nifty 50 index briefly surpassed its important psychological level of 11,200. Meanwhile, gains in ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank and Maruti Suzuki capped the downside for the benchmarks.
As of 12:54 pm, Sensex was up 0.2 per cent or 91 points at 37,779 and Nifty was at 11,124, up 29 points.
Thirteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE were trading higher led by the S&&P BSE Metal index's over 3 per cent gain. Basic materials, consumer discretionary, industrials, auto, bankex and consumer durables indexes also rose over a per cent each.
On the other hand, IT, energy, pharma and power shares were witnessing selling pressure.
Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest and were outperforming their larger peers. The S&P BSE MidCap index rose 0.65 per cent and S&P BSE SmallCap index advanced 0.9 per cent.
Hindalco was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 6 per cent to Rs 173. Tata Steel, Adani Ports, Titan, Maruti Suzuki, JSW Steel, Axis Bank, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv and Mahindra & Mahindra also rose between 1.7-4.5 per cent each.
On the flipside, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, HDFC Life, Tech Mahindra, UPL, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Dr Reddy's Labs, Nestle India, ITC, Reliance Industries and Wipro were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,527 shares were advancing while 913 were declining on the BSE.
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