Sensex, Nifty extend rally; RIL, Maruti, Bajaj Auto up 2-3%

Moneycontrol Bureau12:59 pm Market Update: Equity benchmarks remained strong as the Sensex surged 304.73 points or 1.20 percent to 25787.25 and the Nifty spiked 91 points or 1.18 percent to 7822.80.About 1630 shares have advanced, 815 shares declined, and 191 shares are unchanged on the BSE.12:45 pm HT Media in News: Media firm HT Media today said it will transfer its multi-media content management undertaking to its wholly-owned subsidiary HT Digital Streams on a slump exchange basis."The board of directors of the company... has accepted the recommendations of the audit committee for transfer and vesting of its multi-media content management undertaking to and in HT Digital Streams Ltd as a "going concern" on a slump exchange basis with issue of fully paid-up equity shares of the transferee company to the company," HT Media Ltd said in a BSE filing. 12:30 pm Religare exits MF biz: Financial services group Religare Enterprises has decided to exit mutual fund business with sale of its controlling 51 percent stake in Religare Invesco AMC to the foreign partner Invesco. While a number of foreign fund houses have exited the Indian mutual fund industry - the latest being Goldman Sachs - there have not been many cases where Indian entities have sold the asset management business.

The shares of Religare reacted negatively to the announcement of the deal with a fall of nearly 2 percent.12:15 pm Interview: Despite IT major and competitor Infosys guiding for lower margins in the third quarter of the current fiscal, Tech Mahindra is confident of its business doing well on back of global operations. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Vineet Nayyar, Vice-Chairman of the company says that Q3 is seeing positive orders traction and business is expected to do well in the second half of the year. Nayyar says that business in Europe is down, but the company will benefit from the low costs. In Australia and US, he says the demand is good. Middle East and Asia, which forms a small part of the overall business, are highly competitive, he adds. Also read - Citi cuts Sensex target to 29300 for June 2016 on earnings12:00 pm Market Check

The market continued to be strong in noon trade, supported by short covering in beaten down stocks like banking & financials, technology, auto and infra. However, Coal India, Dr Reddy's Labs, Sun Pharma and Hindalco were only losers on Sensex.

The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 287.91 points or 1.13 percent to 25770.43 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 84.60 points or 1.09 percent to 7816.40. The BSE Midcap rallied 0.8 percent and Smallcap gained 1 percent.

The market breadth also remained strong as about 1615 shares advanced against 704 advancing shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp and Bajaj Auto topped buying list on Sensex, up 2-3 percent followed by HDFC and Infosys with over 1.8 percent upside.