Banking, metal stocks lead rally at bourses

Equity benchmark indices gained marginally during early hours on Tuesday with banking and metal scrips clocking handsome gains.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was trading higher by 137 points or 0.26 per cent at 52,990 while the Nifty 50 moved up by 43 points or 0.27 per cent to 15,868.

Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty metal gaining by 1.7 per cent, PSU bank by 1.6 per cent and realty by 1.2 per cent. But Nifty IT and pharma dipped slightly.

Among stocks, Hindalco surged by 4.2 per cent to Rs 416.80 per share while Tata Steel gained by 1.9 per cent and JSW Steel by 1.7 per cent. The other prominent gainers were State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance and HDFC Life.

However, Axis Bank slipped by 1 per cent. Tech Mahindra, HDFC, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Britannia and Sun Pharma too traded with a negative bias.

Meanwhile, Asia's stock markets fell to fresh troughs led by a third straight session of heavy selling in Chinese internet giants ahead of the Federal Reserve policy meeting.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.25 per cent to its lowest level since mid-December.

The Hong Kong benchmark fell 0.59 per cent, its third day of declines. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.35 per cent.

( With inputs from ANI )