Nifty hovers around 25,000, Sensex rises 200 points; pharma shares gain

The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher on Tuesday led by gains in index heavyweights like Infosys , Axis Bank , HDFC Bank , Bharti Airtel, HCL Technologies and Power grid. The Sensex rose as much as 242 points and Nifty briefly reclaimed its important psychological level of 25,000 amid mixed global cues.

As of 9:19 am, the Sensex was up 90 points at 81,649 and Nifty 50 index advanced 35 points at 24,971.

Most of the Asian markets were trading higher barring indices from Chinese markets. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.16 per cent and Australia's S&P ASX 200 rose 0.63 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.11 per cent and China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.2 per cent.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, opens new tab was last up 0.2 per cent, after falling 1.11 per cent the previous session to hit a one-month low.

Overnight, Wall Street's three major indexes closed higher on Monday as investors looked for bargains after the previous week's sell-off while they also waited for inflation reports in coming days and the Federal Reserve's next policy decision next week.

Back home, ten of 13 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Pharma index's 1.41 per cent gain after the government reduced Goods and Services Tax (GST) on cancer drugs from 12 per cent to 5 per cent. Nifty IT, Metal, PSU Bank, Realty and Consumer Durables indices also rose between 0.4-1 per cent.

On the other hand, select financial services and FMCG shares were facing selling pressure.

Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 1 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index gained 0.9 per cent.

Power Grid was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 1.63 per cent to Rs 333. Divi's Labs, Bharti Airtel, Apollo Hospitals, Hero MotoCorp, LTI Mindtree, Tata Consumer Products and Bharat Petroleum also rose between 0.8-1.5 per cent.

On the flipside, SBI Life, HDFC Life, Bajaj Finserv, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever , Bajaj Auto and IndusInd Bank were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,378 shares were advancing while 552 were declining on the BSE.