Nifty facing resistance above 8,450; HDFC down 1%

Benchmark share indices remained rangebound after the first hour of trade as gains in Bharti Airtel and index heavweight Reliance Industries helped offset losses in IT majors and HDFC.

At 10:45AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 64 points at 28,242 and the 50-share Nifty was up 12 points at 8,443.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 656.37crore on Monday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Japanese shares have rebounded from yesterday's slump boosted by deal activity worth $100 billion in the US and anticipation of European monetary stimulus. Nikkei has gained around 1.7%.

Meanwhile, Chinese shares are trading weak after the launch of direct connect project which connects stock markets of China and Honk Kong. Hang Seng is trading down 0.4% while Shanghai Composite index has lost 0.4%.

The BSE Metal Index was the top gainer up 1.6% followed by Power, Healthcare, Oil & Gas and Bankex indices among others. BSE Consumer Durables and IT indices were down 0.1-0.3% each.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was up nearly 1%. Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecommunications arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, will raise $1.5 billion from 26 banks to refinance loans it took up in 2010, the company said in a statement late on Monday.

Bharti Airtel was up 2.7% as the company will not be affected once the 900MHz spectrum allocated in 1995 comes up for renewal as it smartly bought a lot of 1800 MHz spectrum in February as insurance. So even if it fails to retain its 900 MHz spectrum, its services will not get disrupted: the subscribers can be migrated from one band to another.

SBI was up over 1% post its robust second quarter earnings. Further, reports suggest that in order to make gains from rising stock market it has expanded its list of equities for investments to go beyond the National Stock Exchange's Nifty 50 index scrips.

Capital goods stocks rebounded today with L&T and BHEL up 0.7-1% each.

Sun Pharma was up nearly 1%. The company has recalled about 68,000 bottles of its anti-depressant venlafaxine hydrochloride, from the US market. The company withdrew the drugs, manufactured in its Halol unit in India, after they failed to dissolve properly, said the US Food and Drug Administration.

Sesa Sterlite was up 2.8% as the company is set to take up the Rs 2,500-crore expansion at its copper smelter plant in Tuticorin.

Among other shares, Praj Industries has rallied 5% to Rs 75.20 on BSE after the company said it has bagged an order worth Rs 235 crore for oil & gas process skids from Brazilian oil &gas corporation Petrobras.

Punj Lloyd has rallied 6% to Rs 40.70 on National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the company said it has secured Rs 666 crore Asian highway contract from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index and the Small-cap index were up 0.6-1% each.

Market breadth was strong with 1,531 gainers and 837 losers on the BSE.