Equity gauges tick up, ZEEL gains 21 pc

Equity frontline indices ticked up during early hours on Tuesday with auto and banking stocks seeing buying interest among traders.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 175 points or 0.3 per cent at 58,353 while the Nifty 50 gained by 54 points or 0.31 per cent to 17,409.

Except for Nifty FMCG, all sectoral indices were in the green with Nifty realty and private bank up by 0.8 per cent, pharma and by 0.6 per cent and IT by 0.4 per cent.

Among stocks, shares of Zee Entertainment zoomed by 21 per cent at Rs 225.95 per unit on the BSE after Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund Llc -- which own a combined 17.9 per cent stake in the company -- called for an extra-ordinary shareholders' meet to remove Punit Goenka as a director.

Adani Ports gained by 2 per cent, Eicher Motors by 1.3 per cent, Tata Motors by 1 per cent and Bajaj Auto by 0.8 per cent.

Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank too were in the green but with thin margins. However, Hindustan Lever, Hindalco, HDFC, Grasim and UltraTech Cement were in the negative zone.

Meanwhile, Asia's share markets were mixed with investors awaiting US inflation data for more clues on when the Federal Reserve will taper stimulus.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.13 per cent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dipped into negative territory but Tokyo's Nikkei traded 0.72 per cent higher and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.83 per cent.

( With inputs from ANI )