Sensex, Nifty pare some gains; rupee at 55/USD

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty pared somewhat initial gains as the Indian rupee touched 55.04 to the dollar again. Asian markets too came off day's high; Shanghai, Hang Seng, Nikkei, Straits Times, Kospi and Taiwan gained 0.5-1%.

The BSE benchmark climbed 77.29 points or 0.48% to 16,260.55 and the NSE benchmark was up 22.40 points or 0.46% at 4,928.45.

Country's largest lender State Bank of India fell 0.6% after rising more than 7% in previous two sessions due to strong numbers in Q4FY12 whereas rivals ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank gained 0.5-1%.

India's largest engineering and construction company by sales Larsen & Toubro was down 0.17% while state-owned BHEL rallied 1.5%.

Realty major DLF tanked 1.5% and drug maker Sun Pharma lost over 1%.

Top car maker Maruti Suzuki too was under pressure, falling 0.4% due to rising cost of royalty payments.

However, technology stocks like TCS, Wipro and Infosys gained 0.5-1% on depreciating rupee.

Oil & gas majors Reliance Industries and ONGC were up 0.22% and 0.85%, respectively.

Housing finance company HDFC rose 1% and top commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors surged 1.7%.

Advancing shares outnumbered declining by 788 to 316 on the National Stock Exchange.