Nifty seen heading towards 7,600; RIL up 2%

Markets extended gains and were trading near their day's highs led by index heavyweights ITC and Reliance Industries.

At 1:55 PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 25,411 up 380 points and the 50-share Nifty was up 96 points at 7,590.

Benchmark share indices were up nearly 1% in noon trades on Tuesday led by select index heavyweights and financials which rebounded after the recent correction in the previous few sessions.

At 1PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 288 points at 25,319 and the 50-share Nifty was up 72 points at 7,566.

The Indian rupee recovered against the US dollar tracking gains in domestic equities. The Indian rupee was trading higher by 10 paise at Rs 60.10 against the previous close of Rs 60.20.

Asian markets were trading higher on the back of positive economic data from Japan and the world's two largest economies US and China. The Shanghai Composite was up 0.5%, Hang Seng gained 0.4%, Straits Times was up 0.3% and Nikkei ended flat with positive bias.

European shares opened with marginal gains with CAC-40 up 0.3% while FTSE and DAX were up 0.2% each.

Rate sensitive sectors were among the top gainers with Realty Index up 3.2% followed by Power, Bankex, Capital Goods, Consumer Durables indices among others.

Mortgage lender HDFC was up 2.3% contributing the most to the Sensex gains followed by Reliance Industries which gained nearly 2%.

In the banking space, ICICI Bank, SBI, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were up 1.8-2% each.

ITC which had witnessed profit taking in the previous few session on concerns that rising inflation and weak monsoon would hurt volume growth rebounded today and was up nearly 2%.

Among other shares, Jindal Steel and Power surged 1.6% to Rs 332 on the BSE after winning a large order to supply nearly 88,000 tonnes of long rails to the Tata–Aldesa joint venture to use in the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor.

Praj Industries was up 1.5% at Rs 72.85 after the government on Monday increased the level of mandatory blending of ethanol in petrol to 10% from 5%. Praj Industries manufactures equipment for production of ethanol and also offers solutions to brewery plants and water treatment systems.

The broader market also witnessed value buying at lower levels with both the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices up 1.6-1.7% each.

Market breadth was strong with 1,904 gainers and 834 losers on the BSE.

National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE)

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)