Indian equity indices were trading marginally higher in the early morning trade on Tuesday amid mixed global cues. The Nifty 50 rose 21.50 pts or 0.12% to 17,866.10 and BSE Sensex climbed 123.85 pts or 0.20% to 60,815.39. The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports (up 1.69%), Cipla (up 1.46%), Hindustan Unilever Ltd (up 1.29%), JSW Steel (up 1.23%) and NTPC (up 1.19%) while Adani Enterprises (down 0.91%), Axis Bank (down 0.79%), Titan (down 0.71%), Bajaj Auto (down 0.61%) and Wipro (down 0.53%).
Asian Paints shares fell 0.60% to Rs 2810.40 after Asian Paints (Polymers), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Gujarat to set up a manufacturing facility for Vinyl Acetate Ethylene Emulsion and Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) at Dahej, Gujarat.
Sectoral Indices
The sectoral indices were trading broadly in red. Bank Nifty fell 0.39%, Nifty Auto was down 0.16%, Nifty PSU Bank slipped 0.84% and Nifty IT dipped 0.10% while Nifty Pharma was up 0.37%, Nifty FMCG up 0.46% and Nifty Metal up 0.62%.
Asian and US stock markets
In the early morning trade Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.05%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.59% while China’s Shanghai Composite index was up 0.26% and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.17%.
The US markets remained closed on Monday. On Friday, most of the US indices ended in the red territory with tech-heavy Nasdaq falling 69.56 pts or 0.56% to 11,787.27, S&P 500 dipping 11.32 or 0.28% to 4,079.09 while Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 129.84 pts or 0.39% to 33,826.69.
FII and DII data
Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth a net Rs 158.95 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) accumulated equities worth a net Rs 86.23 crore on 20 February, according to the provisional data available on the NSE.
NSE F&O Ban
The National Stock Exchange has put no stocks on its F&O ban list for 21 February. According to the NSE, stocks are prohibited in the F&O sector once they have exceeded 95% of the market-wide position limit (MWPL). During the F&O ban period, no new positions are permitted for F&O contracts in that stock.