Markets end higher led by heavyweights

Markets ended higher on Tuesday with heavyweights and select rate-sensitive shares leading the gains after liquidity measures announced by the central bank would help boost lending.

The Reserve Bank of India late on Monday further eased liquidity by cutting the marginal standing facility rate, a key overnight interest rate, by 50 basis points to 9%.

The 30-share Sensex ended up 88 points at 19,984 after hitting an intra-day high of 20,150 and the 50-share Nifty gained 22 points to end at 5,928 after touching a high of 5,982.

In the broader markets, the smallcap index, up 0.5%, outperformed the other indices. The midcap index closed for the day, with gains of 0.2% as compared to the BSE benchmark index, which was up 0.4%.

Global Markets

Faint signs of movement in a US fiscal standoff helped the dollar edge away from an eight-month low on Tuesday but failed to provoke much reaction in world share and oil markets.

A White House spokesman said on Monday it would accept a short-term increase in the nation's borrowing authority to avoid a default. An influential Senator was also said to be floating a plan to cut federal spending and reform the US tax code as part of a broader deal.

Asian shares rose as data showed China's services industry continued to expand, soothing to some extent nerves jarred by fears of a US debt default as the US government shutdown entered a second week.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan reversed early losses to trade up 0.4%, while China's CSI300 index climbed 0.9% on its first trading day in a week after the National Day holidays.

Tokyo's Nikkei share average advanced 0.3% after earlier hitting a five-week low, though its volatility gauge added 0.5% as an indication that investors were not totally off their guard over the US fiscal situation.

Sectors & Stocks

Barring, IT and Metal index which closed in the red, down 0.87% and 0.3% respectively, all the other indices closed in the positive territory.

Among the ones in the green, Realty, Capital Goods, FMCG, Power, Bankex and Consumer Durables indices gained 0.6-1.5%.

Health Care, Teck and Auto indices were marginally up 0.1% each.

The top gainer among the Sensex-30 wasTata Power up 3% after the company said it has signed a share purchase agreement to buy 39.2 megawatts wind farm in Gujarat, from US-based AES Corporation's Indian subsidiary.

L&T, ITC, Sun Pharma, Jindal Steel, NTPC and ONGC up 1-3% were the other notable gainers.

From the banking space, ICICI Bank ended higher by 2.3%. However, HDFC Bank, SBI and HDFC ended lower paring the intra-day gains amid profit taking at higher levels.

On the losing side were Hindalco, SBI, Tata Steel, Coal India, SSLT, Cipla, BHEL, TCS and HDFC all down 1-2%.

Hero MotoCorp, Gail India, Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki, which lost 0.3-0.8% were the other prominent losers.

The market breadth was positive. 1,276 stocks advanced while 1,141 stocks declined on the BSE.