Nifty hovers around 8,300; Tata Group shares gain

Nifty hovers around 8,300; Tata Group shares gain

Benchmark share indices came off their early highs amid profit taking in select index heavyweights even as Tata Group shares continued to trade higher.

At 10:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 193 points at 27,468 after hitting an intra-day high of 27,508 and the 50-share Nifty was up 55 points at 8,290 after touching 8,303 in early trades.

The Indian rupee was trading higher at Rs 62.33 compared to the US dollar compared to the previous close of Rs 62.66.

Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in Indian equities worth Rs 477 crore on Thursday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Except for Realty index all other all sectoral indices were in the green. BSE Healthcare index emerging as the top sectoral gainer up nearly 2% followed by Oil and Gas, Auto, Bankex, Capital Goods and IT indices among others.

Among the Tata Group shares, TCS was up 1.6% and Tata Motors gained 1.7%. Tata Steel was up over 2% as the stock has received a rating upgrade from a foreign brokerage.

Hindustan Unilever extended gains and was up 2.6% after Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to buy with a target price of Rs 900 per share.

Other Sensex gainers include, HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries, Cipla and ONGC among others.

Among other shares, SpiceJet is locked in upper circuit of 10% at Rs 18.30 on BSE with no sellers on the counter on reports that the company has informed the civil aviation ministry that it will raise the first tranche of funds by January 10.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.8% each.

Market breadth remained strong with 1,454 gainers and 675 losers on the BSE.