By IANS,
Mumbai : With investors resorting to booking profits on gains made during two previous successive trading sessions, Indian equities opened lower Tuesday but regained positive territory mid-afternoon on news that banks were going to cut lending rates after their meeting with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
The 30-share benchmark sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened at 10,304.57 points, against the previous close at 10,337.68 points, and soon dipped to 10,116.22 points.
But mid-afternoon the index was ruling at 10,390.42, up 52.74 points or 0.51 percent from its previous close.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty also opened lower but regained mid-afternoon to rule at 3059.10, up 15.25 points or 0.50 percent from its previous close Monday at 3043.85 points.
As many as 10 of the 13 sectoral indices were in the green and only health care, telecommunications, media and technology and information technology indices showed losses.
Bank, realty, power and public sector unit stocks were the major gainers.
Tata Power, up 10 percent led the gainers followed by Ranbaxy Laboratories, up 9.69 percent, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) up 7.51 percent and Jaiprakash Associates, up 7.06 percent.
Tata Consultancy Services shed 8.78 percent to lead the losers, followed by Satyam Computers, down 7.95 percent, Wipro Ltd down 7.29 percent and Infosys Technologies losing 5.4 percent.
With banks beginning to announce plans to cut interest rates, markets should tend to stay in positive territory, analysts said.
Other good news included the fall in the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the rate that banks charge each other to make overnight loans, to 0.39 percent Monday, from 0.41 percent Friday – the lowest level since 1997 when the British Bankers’ Association began tracking the rate.
Other Asian markets were also in the green with Nikkei, the key index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, again regaining 9,000 levels to show a gain of 6.27 percent.
The Hang Seng, key index of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was also showing a gain of 0.28 percent.
Analysts said while trading was still somewhat lacklustre, Indian equities should end Tuesday with gains.