Opening Bell: Headline indices open in green; Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement and Maruti Suzuki emerge as top gainers

On Tuesday, Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 145 points, or 0.89%, down at 16,146.50, indicating that the equity markets would open lower. Contrasting to the signals, the benchmark indices opened in green.

In the previous trading session, Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have net offloaded shares worth Rs 3,361.80 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) remained net buyers, to the tune of Rs 3,077.24 crore worth of shares.

At the open, the Sensex was up 107.98 points or 0.20% at 54578.65, and the Nifty was up 29.50 points or 0.18% at 16331.40. About 1304 shares have advanced, 659 shares declined, and 77 shares are unchanged.

Asian Paints, Eicher Motors, SBI Life Insurance, Maruti Suzuki and Adani Ports were among the major gainers on the Nifty, while losers were ONGC, Hindalco Industries, JSW Steel, Reliance Industries and Cipla.

Meanwhile, on Sensex, the top gainers were Asian Paints, Ultratech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, SBI and Bajaj Finserv while the top losers in the index were Reliance Industries, Infosys, Titan, ICICI Bank and Powergrid Corporation of India

In the broader markets, at 9.50 am BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap indices traded flat, being down 0.14% and up 0.12%, respectively. In the BSE Midcap index, the top gaining stocks index were General Insurance Corporation of India, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Tata Communication and Ashok Leyland whereas, in BSE Smallcap index, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers and Chemicals, Texmaco Rail and Engineering, Brightcom Group, Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation and Craftsman Automation turned up to be the top gainers.

On the sectoral front, indices traded with mixed cues. BSE Metal and BSE Consumer Durable indices declined more than 1%, whereas the rest of the indices traded flat. The top consumer durable stocks dragging down the index were Dixon Technologies, Voltas, Crompton Greaves, Titan Company and Blue Star losing up to 4.8%.