Nifty hovers around 7,500; defensives gain

Markets have come off morning highs as weakness in counters like ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and M&M weighed on the indices. At 1130 hrs, the Sensex was up 80 points at 25,143 and the Nifty was up 22 points to trade at 7,514.

In the broader markets, the smallcap index surged 0.6% and the midcap index was up 0.4%, both outperforming the Sensex which was up 0.3%.

Metal and Realty indices down 0.7% ad 0.6% respectively were the only indices in red. Also, Auto and FMCG indices were flat with a negative bias.

Meanwhile, Health Care index surged over 2% along with onsumer Durables, Teck and IT indices up 1-2%.

Bharti Airtel, BHEl, Hindalco down 2% each were the top losers among Sensex-30.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Coal India, Sesa Sterlite, ICICI Bank, GAIL and Maruti Suzuki down 0.8-1.5% were the other prominent names in red.

Defensive names from IT and pharma counters lead the gainers list. Sun Pharma, TCS, Wipro, Dr Reddys Lab and Infosys added 1-4%.

Sun Pharma rallied after their recently acquired Ranbaxy Laboratories received the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA)'s approval to sell a generic version of Novartis's hypertension medicine, Diovan.

TATA Consultancy Services ( TCS )

Wipro Technologies (Wipro Ltd)

ICICI Bank

Infosys Technologies Limited