Nifty holds 8,600; Tata Motors, M&M up over 2%

Markets continued to trade firm in late noon trades led by rate sensitive shares on hopes of a rate cut by the central bank and index heavyweight Reliance Industries.

At 2:15PM, the 30-share Sensex is up 333 points at 28,772 and the 50-share Nifty has gained 109 points to trade at 8,604.

Earlier, the Sensex touched the life-time high level of 28,822.37 and Nifty reached all-time high mark of 8,616.70.

Scaling a new peak, the total investor wealth in Indian stock market today hit a record high of Rs 100 trillion, marking a jump of ten times in little over a decade.

The total market cap of all BSE listed companies had crossed Rs 10 lakh crore mark nearly 11 years ago in 2003 and the Rs 50 lakh crore mark in 2009. The 30 Sensex companies alone, which are among the biggest companies in the country, now account for nearly 50% or about Rs 47 lakh crore of total investor wealth.

This includes TCS, the country's most valued firm and the only entity to have a market value of over Rs 5 lakh crore, followed by state-run ONGC and private sector behemoth Reliance Industries with market caps of over Rs 3 lakh crore each.

In the broader market, BSE midcap index is up 1.2% and BSE Smallcap index has gained 0.7%.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 389.73 crore on Thursday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

The rupee was trading lower at 61.91 compared with Thursday's 61.87 close. Month-end dollar demand from importers is likely to hurt the Indian unit.

All sectoral indices are trading in the green led by Bankex which is up nearly 3%. BSE Auto, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, Realty, Power and Capital Goods indices are up between 1-2% each.

Among the rate sensitive sectors bank shares gained on hopes that a rate-cut by the central bank would lead to revival in demand for credit. ICICI Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank were up 1-4.2% each. Mortgage lended HDFC was up 0.8%.

Auto shares gained on hopes that lower interest rates on vehicle loans would lead to higher sales growth going forward. Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, M&M, Hero MotoCorp were up 0.6-2.5% each.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was up 1.6% after the a Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) panel asked the government to allow the company to recover $160 million of cost incurred on the KG-D6 block and suggested the government to resolve all pending issues of the company.

ITC was up 0.5% on reports about company's plans to invest about 9,000 crore in the next four to five years to increase its number of hotels to 150.

Other Sensex gainers include L&T and IT major Infosys.

Oil prices plunged to four-year lows after the The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), at its meeting held in Vienna on Thursday, decided to maintain its production level of 30 million barrels per day despite weak global demand.

Among other shares, oil marketing companies – Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) are trading higher between 4-5% after Brent crude fell $5.17 to $72.58 a barrel on Thursday.

Shares of Bajaj Corp has moved higher by 6% to Rs 334 on National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the company said that after its board approved to increase the aggregate investment limit of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) from 24% to 49% of the paid-up equity capital.

Asian Paints was up 5% as the company would be a beneficiary with raw material costs linked to crude oil prices.

Airline shares such as Jet Airways and SpiceJet were up 13-20% each as aviation fuel comprises nearly 40% of operating costs.

Market breadth was positive with 1,603 gainers and 1,265 losers on the BSE.