Nifty eyes 7550, Sensex up over 150 pts; ITC, Maruti gainers

Moneycontrol Bureau10:58 am Market Update: Benchmark indices were little changed over the last half an hour of trade. The Sensex gained 178.05 points or 0.72 percent at 24801.39 and the Nifty rose 53.20 points or 0.71 percent to 7539.35.The market breadth was positive as about two shares advanced for every share declining on the BSE.

Adani Ports (2.5 percent), Maruti Suzuki (1.5 percent), Axis Bank (1.5 percent) and Reliance (1.4 percent) were top gainers in Nifty. Among the losers were Sun Pharma (-1.4 percent) and Tata Steel (-0.5 percent).

In sectoral performance as reflected by the respective indices, oil & gas (1.2 percent), capital goods (0.9 percent), auto (0.7 percent) and FMCG (0.6 percent) gained, while consumer durables (-0.1 percent) were under pressure.     

Key Asian markets were mostly higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng led gainers, trading 149 points higher at 20133. Singapore’s Straits Times was up 10 points at 2820, Taiwan’s Taiwan Index was up 25 points at 8686 and Korea’s Kospi was up 3 points at 1972. In laggards Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 4 points at 16847, and China’s Shanghai was down 6 points at 2797. 10:40 am Bags order: Welspun Corp has won an order for supply of 2,00,000 MTs pipes for an offshore project in the Middle East.

With the addition of this order, current order book of the company has crossed at 11,36,000 MTs worth at Rs 6,500 crore, it says.10:20 am Drug samples recalled: Shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries fell 2.4 percent intraday after recalling of 3.8 lakh cartons of osteoporosis drug in the US.

The recall of 3,81,120 cartons of Alendronate Sodium tablets has been initiated by Sun Pharma Global Fze, an arm of the Indian pharma major. The drug is manufactured at Sun Pharma's Halol facility in Gujarat, United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) said in its latest Enforcement Report.

The cartons are being recalled on account of "observed levels of highest unknown impurity exceeding specification limit at the 3-month stability time point," the report said.

Also read - Colgate extends restructuring programme, to cut more jobs10:00 am Market Check

The Sensex is up 156.11 points or 0.6 percent at 24779.45, and the Nifty up 47.35 points or 0.6 percent at 7533.50. About 1160 shares have advanced, 502 shares declined, and 88 shares are unchanged.

Adani Ports, Axis Bank, Reliance, ITC and Maruti are top gainers while Sun Pharma, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel are losers in the Sensex.

Oil prices rebounded in Asia but doubts over a planned meeting between producer giants including Russia and Saudi Arabia this month to discuss an output freeze held back gains.

Questions over the proposed March 20 meeting emerged after Iran declined to agree to any output cap as it ramps up production following the lifting of nuclear-linked sanctions in January. And even if a meeting does takes place, analysts are not optimistic an agreement would be reached.