Stock Market: Sensex Rises 185 Points, Nifty Trades Above 18,700 Amid Mixed Cues. Banks Lead

Stock update: On the 30-share Sensex platform, M&M, Tata Steel, Asian Paints, Infosys, Airtel, Wipro emerged early gainers

The two key equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty, on Tuesday opened higher in early trade tracking mixed global cues. At 9.40 am, the BSE Sensex was up 185 points to 63,155. On the other hand, the NSE Nifty50 was trading at 18,745, up 54 points.

On the 30-share Sensex platform, M&M, Tata Steel, Asian Paints, Infosys, Airtel, Wipro emerged early gainers. On the downside, Titan, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma, TechM, ITC, HUL were among the losers. Among specific stocks, shares of Infosys gained 1 per cent after the company bagged a digital transformation deal from Denmark-based Danske Bank estimated to be around $454 million for five years.

In the broader markets, Nifty Midcap 100, and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices gained up to 0.4 per cent.

Volatility index, India VIX, too, cooled off (down 1 per cent).

Sectorally, all of them were trading in the positive territory, with Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Realty indices rising up to 0.8 per cent.

In the previous session on Monday, the S&P BSE Sensex ended on a flat note at 62,970, down 9 points, while the NSE Nifty settled 26 points higher at 18,691.

"In the past few sessions, any intra-day strength is driven by only a few companies across a narrow set of sectors," said Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd.

In Asian markets, Shanghai and Hong Kong traded in the green while Seoul and Tokyo quoted lower. The US markets ended in the negative terrain on Monday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.47 per cent to $74.53 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 409.43 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.

Meanwhile, the rupee recovered 8 paise to 81.96 against the US dollar in the early trade on Tuesday after gains in domestic equities and a weak greenback in overseas markets. The domestic currency opened higher at 82.02 against the dollar at the interbank foreign exchange market. It moved in a tight range of 81.95 to 82.02 in the early trade.

The rupee traded at 81.96 against the US dollar at 9.45 am, registering a gain of 8 paise over the previous close of 82.04. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, traded lower by 0.07 per cent at 102.63.