Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices traded higher during early hours on Tuesday bucking weak Asian trends with FMCG stocks gaining ground.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 312 points or 0.59 per cent at 53,263 while the Nifty 50 moved higher by 76 points or 0.48 per cent to 15,961.
Except for Nifty metal which dipped by 0.6 per cent, all sectoral indices were in the positive terrain with Nifty FMCG and realty gaining by 1 per cent each, pharma by 0.9 per cent and IT by 0.7 per cent.
Among stocks, Titan surged by 4 per cent to Rs 1,843.90 per share while Asian Paints was up by 2.2 per cent, Britannia and ITC by 1.5 per cent, and Nestle India by 0.9 per cent.
The other prominent gainers were Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Consumer Products. Experts said fundamental support to the bulls has been coming from good corporate results.
However, metal stocks lost on profit booking with JSW Steel down by 1.3 per cent, Hindalco by 0.6 per cent and Tata Steel 0.4 per cent. Bajaj Auto, UPL, ICICI Bank and SBI Life too were in the red. Meanwhile, Asian stocks slipped as the Delta coronavirus variant spread across key markets in the region and put Chinese authorities on high alert, rattling investor confidence.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4 per cent in early trading. Japan's Nikkei was off 0.85 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.83 per cent. (ANI)
