Nifty holds 8,700 amid rangebound trade; Infosys up 1%

Markets remained rangebound with positive bias after gains in IT majors ahead of their second quarter earnings helped capped further downside.

At 12:35pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 74 points at 28,135 and the Nifty50 was up 31 points at 8,728. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were up 0.2%-0.5% each. Market breadth was positive with 1680 gainers and 917 losers on the BSE.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities worth Rs 56 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

IT exporters emerged as the top gainers ahead of their earnings with Infosys scheduled to announce its second quarter earnings on Friday, October 14, 2016. Infosys was up 1.6%, TCS gained 0.5% and Wipro was trading with marginal gains.

Pharma shares also witnessed buying interest with Lupin, Cipla and Sun Pharma emerging as the top gainers.

Tata Steel was trimmed early gains but was up over 2% after the company said its sales rose by 12% year on year (y-o-y) to 2.62 million tonnes (MT) in the quarter ended September 30, 2016 (Q2FY17). The company had recorded sales of 2.33 MT in the same quarter of 2015-16 fiscal.

ONGC was trading with marginal gains. Reports suggest that the state-owned exploration major is likely to buy an operating stake in the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC)’s KG basin gas block.

Among other shares, JSW Steel has moved higher by 2.6% at Rs 1,821 on the BSE after the company announced that the board will meet on October 27, 2016 to consider stock split from face value of Rs 10 each to lower denomination.

8K Miles Software Services has rallied 12% at Rs 840 on the BSE in intra-day trade after the stock was traded ex-bonus and ex-stock split on Monday, October 10, 2016.

Bombay Stock Exchange - BSE

National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE)