Sensex, Nifty Rangebound; Maruti Suzuki, Titan, Tata Steel Among Top Gainers

The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher on Tuesday, but were trading in a narrow range, led by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Infosys, Titan, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Fiserv amid stable cues from other Asian markets. Asian equities consolidated recent gains as investors' sentiment improved amid strong results by U.S. companies, helping stocks recover from the worst start to the year since 2016, while a resurgent euro paused ahead of U.S inflation data, news agency Reuters reported. The Sensex rose as much as 305 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,306

As of 12:10 pm, the Sensex was up 6 points at 57,627 and Nifty 50 index advanced 1 points to 17,214.

Thirteen of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Healthcare and Consumer Durables indices' over 1 per cent gain. Auto, financial services, metal, pharma and select private banking shares were also witnessing buying interest.

On the other hand, PSU bank and media shares were witnessing selling pressure.

Mid- and small-cap shares were trading marginally higher Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.4 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index was trading on a flat note.

Titan was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2 per cent to Rs 2,455. Bajaj FInserv, Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Finance, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, Wipro, Hero MotoCorp and Bharti Airtel also rose between 1-1.8 per cent.

On the flipside, Power Grdid, NTPC, State Bank of India, ONGC, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Consumer Products, Indian Oil, Nestle India and Infosys were among the notable losers.

The overall market breadth was marginally positive as 1,498 shares were advancing while 1,304 were declining on the BSE.