The Indian equity benchmarks came off intraday highs in late morning deals on the back of weakness in banking, financial services and FMCG shares. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening tracking positive global cues wherein the Sensex rose as much as 434 points and Nifty 50 index climbed above its important psychological level of 14,800. However, owing to volatility on the back of weekly index futures and option expiry the benchmarks came off intraday highs.
As of 11:40 am, the Sensex was up 45 points at 49,553 and Nifty advanced 29 points to 14,720.
Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Metal index's 3 per cent gain. PSU Bank, Pharma, Auto and Pharma shares were also witnessing a mild buying interest.
On the other hand, Nifty Bank, Financial Services, FMCG, and realty indexes were trading with a negative bias.
Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.6 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 1.45 per cent.
JSW Steel was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 6.23 per cent to Rs 498. Hindalco, Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Adani Ports, HCL Technologies, Tata Consumer Products, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma and Tata Motors also rose between 1-4.5 per cent.
On the flipside, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Life, Nestle India, Hindustan Unilever, Grasim Industries, TCS, Indian Oil, Divi's Labs, SBI Life, HDFC, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,896 shares were advancing while 683 were declining on the BSE.
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