India’s stock markets opened lower on Tuesday as the market benchmark index Sensex declined 114 points to open at 35,355.72 points. However, the losses were quickly pared, and the benchmark index retreated to trade in the positive range. At 12.44 pm, Sensex traded 101 points, 0.28 percent, higher at 35,571. The NSE’s Nifty traded higher by 26 points, or 0.24 percent, at 10,789.
Top Sensex gainers are Coal India (2.95 per cent), Bharti Airtel (1.59 percent) and HDFC (1.36 percent). The top laggards are Tata Motors (2.24 percent), Reliance Industries (1.31 percent) and ICICI Bank (1.30 percent).
“India, not being a major manufacturing exporter, is able to stay resilient amid global trade war tensions. There is still some amount of pressure on midcaps, but the index heavyweights are holding up the markets,” said Harendra Kumar, managing director at Elara Capital. HDFC and cigarette maker ITC rose over 1.2 percent each, driving gains in the indexes. Nifty FMCG index gained over 1 percent and was on track to post gains for a second session in ten.
Coal India Ltd and Ultratech Cement Ltd were among the top gainers on the NSE index, rising over 2.5 percent each.
Voltas shares fell as much as 4.2 percent to a near one-year low following a report of Tata Group exploring options to divest up to 9 percent stake in the company.
