(RTTNews) - After a holiday weekend, the Indian market is currently trading firm in early trading on Tuesday, helped by firm Asian cues. Reports that capital market regulator SEBI may give individual foreign investors direct access to Indian stock markets also helped improve sentiment.
After opening modestly up, the BSE Sensex has moved up significantly in the past few minutes. The Sensex is now trading near the day's high at 16,888, up 147 points or 0.88% and the S&P CNX Nifty is trading at 5,017, up 0.83%.
Second-line stocks are also witnessing strong buying support. The BSE mid-cap index is up 0.92% and the small-cap index is rising 1.2%. The market breadth on the BSE is extremely positive, with 1478 gainers versus 704 losers. Sector-wise, auto, IT, capital goods, power and realty stocks are leading the gainers.
Among the top gainers, Hero Honda Motors is rising 3.54%, while Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Tata Power are up around 2% each.
Hindustan Unilever, HDFC, TCS, DLF, Reliance Industries, SBI, Infosys, BHEL, Wipro, NTPC, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Steel are the other prominent gainers.
On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, Sterlite Industries, Jaiprakash Associates, ACC and ONGC are trading in the red.
Sterlite Industries is losing nearly 1% on reports it has offered to release Grupo Mexico SAB de CV from a potential legal liability, if the Indian miner wins the control of bankrupt U.S. copper miner Asarco LLC.
Bharti Airtel is down around 2% on reports it is making a slew of last-minute concessions to finalize a deal with South Africa's MTN. Logistics firm Gati is rising 1.36% after its board approved a preferential issue of warrants to Infrastructure Fund of India LLC and its promoters.
Tata Motors is up over 2% and Ashok Leyland is up 0.74% on reports they are planning price hikes. Jindal Cotex, which issued shares to public recently at Rs.75 per share, is trading at Rs.85 on its debut.
NTPC is up 0.87% on reports it may tie-up with public sector oil firms, including Indian Oil Corp, to jointly bid for the oil and gas blocks put on offer under the eighth round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy.
Federal Bank is gaining 0.53% after it has commenced a financial due diligence of Catholic Syrian Bank(CSB) for considering a merger proposal between the banks. Hindustan Construction is adding 0.31% after Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley acquired over 37 lakh shares of the company through open market deals.
