Sensex rises over 100 points, Nifty tops 17,700; Bajaj Holdings, HCL Tech & Tata Motors jump up to 9%

Indian equity benchmarks turned positive in Tuesday's trade after recording a steep fall in the previous session. The domestic indices traded higher today in early deals led by strong buying interest in state-owned lenders, automobile and metal stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 114 points or 0.19 per cent to trade at 60,025, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 29 points or 0.16 per cent higher to trade at 17,736. Mid- and small-cap shares were up as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.40 per cent and small-cap gained 0.41 per cent.

Technology stocks led the correction in the previous trading day when Sensex slipped below the psychological 60,000 mark after logging gains in each of the previous nine sessions.

"The market was dragged down by the IT pack. This means, if we exclude the IT segment the market is resilient," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Foreign institutional investors snapped their 10-day buying streak yesterday, selling Rs 533 crore worth of equities.

12 out of the 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Auto and Nifty Metal were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 0.45 per cent, 0.46 per cent and 0.36 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, HCL Technologies was the top Nifty gainer as the stock jumped 1.50 per cent to trade at Rs 1,057.80. Also, Tata Motors, Eicher Motors, Coal India and HDFC Life rose up to 1.41 per cent.

In contrast, Apollo Hospitals, Hero MotoCorp, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Industries and PowerGrid slipped up to 1.50 per cent.

The overall market breadth was strong as 1,907 shares were advancing while 727 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Infosys, ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tata Motors, L&T, Maruti, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank were among the top gainers.

In addition, Bajaj Holdings & Investment and ITI jumped up to 8.51 per cent.

On the flip side, Reliance, HUL, TCS, Bharti Airtel and PowerGrid were trading in the red.

Sensex had dived 520 points or 0.86 per cent to close at 59,911 on Monday, while Nifty had moved 121 points or 0.68 per cent down to finish at 17,707.

Nifty outlook

"Slippages stopped at the 200-DMA yesterday, suggesting that bargain hunting is prepared to surface at the earliest available pivot of significance, retaining the upside hopes. A vertical rise is less anticipated though, and 17,700 could see buyers becoming reluctant again. Expect another period of consolidation without breaching 17,500 to encourage bulls to regroup. For the day, we would also look for a direct rise above 17,740 or a turn from 17,500 to play a 17,870-17,976 move," said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

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