Sensex, Nifty rangebound; Sun Pharma, Reliance down

Moneycontrol Bureau11:55 am Market views: The recent rally in the Indian equity market is not surprising and looking at the momentum the upswing could further stretch near the Budget announcement, says CNBC-TV18's Udayan Mukherjee.

Foreign institutional investor (FII) selling in emerging markets (EMs) has been relentless recently and among EMs, fund managers are trying to figure out which are expensive and which deserve to be expensive, he said.

Post Budget, there is no rush for foreign money to flood in to the market and instead even if the source of FII selling dries up and domestic investors remain emboldened — encouraged due to the Budget provisions — there is a reasonable chance that the market might have put in a bottom, he further added.

11:45 am FII view: Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley says there is a high level of uncertainty caused by the currency exchange, the upcoming Union Budget, general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) and GST implementation, impending state elections, and flux in US policy.

However, valuations are attractive and set the case in favour of stocks, he feels.

He is overweight on consumer discretionary, financials, and technology and underweight on consumer staples, energy, materials and telecom.

In focus list, Desai says he is replacing LIC Housing Finance with analysts' favoured non-banking finance stock, Bajaj Finance.

11:30 am Upcoming IPO: Stock market operator BSE Ltd has set the indicative price band for its initial public offering (IPO) of shares at between Rs 805 and Rs 806 apiece, according to a marketing term sheet for the offering. The IPO, which will open for bidding on Jan. 23, will see some of BSE's shareholders selling a total of 15.4 million shares, and will value the stock exchange at Rs 44 billion (USD 645.02 million) at the top end of the price range.Don't miss: Infosys falls 5% post Q3; experts analyse if it is a bargain

The market is still rangebound as the Sensex is up 38.60 points or 0.1 percent at 27276.66. The Nifty is up 5.30 points at 8405.65. About 1413 shares have advanced, 866 shares declined, and 303 shares are unchanged.

Tata Steel, Adani Ports, Tata Motors, HDFC and Axis Bank are top gainers while Infosys, Sun Pharma, Reliance, GAIL and ONGC are losers in the Sensex.

Oil prices inched up supported by a weaker dollar and expectations that OPEC and other producers will cut output as part of a deal to curb global oversupply. Traders said that prices were buoyed by a weakening dollar, which makes fuel purchases cheaper for countries that use other currencies domestically, potentially spurring demand.

After spending much of the second half of 2016 in an upward trend, the dollar has fallen around 2.5 percent against a basket of other leading currencies since its early-January peak.