Key barometers pared gains in early afternoon trade as profit selling emerged at higher levels. At 12:19 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 190.30 points or 0.55% at 35,055.40. The Nifty 50 index was up 49.70 points or 0.47% at 10,562.20. The Sensex was trading above the psychologically important 35,000 mark after opening above that level.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 1681 shares rose and 675 shares fell. A total of 139 shares were unchanged.
Most IT shares rose. MphasiS (up 3.76%), Persistent Systems (up 2.56%), Tech Mahindra (up 1.25%), MindTree (up 1.09%), Hexaware Technologies (up 0.11%) and Oracle Financial Services Software (up 0.08%), edged higher. TCS (down 0.32%), Wipro (down 0.73%) and HCL Technologies (down 0.88%), edged lower.
IT major Infosys was up 0.84%. The company announce Q2 results today, 16 October 2018.
Pharmaceutical shares were mixed. Lupin (up 2%), Piramal Enterprises (up 1.44%), Aurobindo Pharma (up 1.04%), Cadila Healthcare (up 0.8%), Alkem Laboratories (up 0.48%), GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (up 0.26%), Divi's Laboratories (up 0.07%) and Strides Shasun (up 0.01%), edged higher. Dr Reddy's Laboratories (down 0.24%), IPCA Laboratories (down 0.38%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (down 0.53%), Wockhardt (down 0.56%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (down 0.89%) and Cipla (down 0.93%), edged lower.
On the macro front, India's merchandise trade deficit during April-September 2018 was reported at $94.32 billion and $13.98 billion in September 2018, which is the lowest in last 5 months, despite high oil prices.
Merchandise exports in September 2018 exhibited a positive growth of 9.65% in Rupee terms. In dollar terms there was a marginal negative growth in merchandise exports of 2.15% in September 2018. In the first six months (April-September 2018), merchandise exports exhibited a positive growth of 19.93% in Rupee terms and 12.54% in US$ terms over same period last year.
Imports during April-September 2018 exhibited a positive growth of 16.16% in US$ terms. In September 2018, imports exhibited a positive growth of 10.45% in US$ terms (which is the lowest in last 5 months) and 23.78 in Rupee terms.
Overseas, Asian shares were mixed. China's consumer inflation in September rose 2.5% compared to a year ago and 0.7% higher than August, government data on Tuesday showed.
In US, major benchmarks closed lower Monday as tech weakness prevented stocks from holding on to earlier gains. Investors also remained cautious following last week's equity-market rout, sparked in part by rising US interest rates.
On the data front, US retail sales rose 0.1% in September, less than expected. Excluding car sales, the figure remained flat last month. The Empire State Index meanwhile rose 2.1 points to 21.1 in October, compared with 19 previously. Business inventories for August rose 0.5%.
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