Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs; Pharma Shares Outperform, Banks Subdued

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs in late morning deals as the sharp surge in pharma shares was offset with subdued trading in FMCG, banking, financial services, capital goods and power shares. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening but later turned flat and were trading in a range bound manner. 

The Sensex traded in a band of 220 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 11,584.10 and low of 11,537.55.

As of 1:49 am, the Sensex was up 82 points at 39,062 and Nifty was at 11,569, up 53 points.

Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Pharma index's over 5 per cent gain. Nifty Media and Auto and Realty indexes also rose between 0.7-1.6 per cent.

On the other hand, FMCG, Financial Services and PSU Banking shares were trading lower.

Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest as the Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.62 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.8 per cent.

Dr Reddy's Labs was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose over 8 per cent to hit a record high of ₹ 5,300 after the company announced settlement of litigation with Celgene, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb, relating to patents of Revlimid capsules.

Cipla, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports, Hindalco, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Zee Entertainment, Asian Paints, GAIL India and Tata Motors also rose between 1-7 per cent.

On the flipside, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finserv, Maruti Suzuki, Shree Cements, Nestle India, HDFC Life, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, Coal India, ITC and Bajaj Auto were among the laggards.