Sensex, Nifty turn choppy; erase early gains on profit-booking

Mumbai: The BSE Sensex rose over 100 points on Thursday, but turned choppy after investors began booking profits at higher levels.

The benchmark indices opened higher led by banking and auto stocks amid sustained buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs), better-than-expected corporate earnings and positive global cues buoyed sentiment.

The 30-share Sensex rallied 149.36 points, or 0.44 per cent, to trade at 34,591.41 points. The gauge had climbed 550.92 points on Wednesday. Sectoral indices led by capital goods, realty, infrastructure and auto were trading in the positive zone, with gains up to 4.29 per cent.

The broader NSE Nifty too surged 55 points, or 0.49 per cent, to 10,441.60 in opening session.

In the Sensex kitty, L&T took the top position by surging 5.73 per cent on the back of better-than-expected quarterly earnings posted by the company Wednesday.

Easing concerns around the rift between the government and RBI, after the Finance Ministry said the autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, was an "essential and accepted" governance requirement, lifted the market in early trade, traders said.

Other gainers that supported the key indices included Yes Bank, Tata Motors, ONGC, M&M, Axis Bank, Adani Ports, Tata Steel, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC Bank, PowerGrid, ITC Ltd, and Bajaj Auto, rising by up to 1.86 per cent. Stocks of automakers were in good demand ahead of October month's sale data, to be released later in the day.

However, investors booked profits in index heavyweights, dragging the benchmarks in the negative zone.

Top losers include Infosys, TCS, HDFC, HUL, ITC and Wipro, falling up to 2 per cent. Meanwhile, DIIs bought shares worth a net of Rs 1,124.92 crore, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold share to the tune of Rs 193.65 crore Wednesday, as per provisional data.

Globally, in the Asian region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.63 per cent, Shanghai Composite Index up 1.23 per cent, while Taiwan rose 0.32 per cent. Korea gained 0.58 per cent. Japan's Nikkei, however, was down 0.78 per cent.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.97 per cent Wednesday on the back of strong corporate earnings.