Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs; Tata Motors Among Top Gainers

The Indian equity benchmarks erased early gains and were trading on a flat note as selling pressure in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC twins offset gains in Tata Motors, NTPC, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Finance, TCS, Bajaj Finance and Hindustan Unilever. The Sensex rose as much as 283 points in opening deals and Nifty 50 index briefly moved above its important level of 18,000.

As of 9:52 am, the Sensex was up 88 points at 60,227 and Nifty 50 index rose 19 points to 17,948.

Meanwhile, Asian shares were mixed on Tuesday and currencies held tight ranges as nervous investors awaited several key central bank meetings that could set the tone for risk appetite heading into next year.

MSCI's gauge of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan recovered early losses to be 0.8 per cent higher at 0128 GMT, with Japan's Nikkei edging 0.2 per cent lower and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 down 0.6 per cent.

Back home, pace of selling by foreign investors slowed on Monday as foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 202 crore on Monday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 116 crore.

Buying was visible across the board as thirteen of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Auto index's 1.5 per cent gain. Nifty PSU Bank, Realty, Consumer Durables, Information Technology and Financial Services indices also rose between 0.4-1 per cent.

On the other hand, mild selling pressure was visible in pharma and healthcare shares.

Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index advanced 0.9 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 10 index rose 0.7 per cent.

Tata Motors was the top Nifty gainer, the stock rose as much as 5 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 510 after it reported September quarter earnings after market hours on Monday

NTPC, Maruti Suzuki, Power Grid, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Life, Titan, Bajaj Finserv, Divi's Labs and Hindustan Unilever rose between 0.7-2.7 per cent.

On the flipside, Sun Pharma, IndusInd Bank, Hindalco, Eicher Motors, Tata Steel, Dr Reddy's Labs, JSW Steel, Coal India, Reliance Industries and Grasim Industries were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,848 shares were advancing while 737 were declining on the BSE.