Equity gauges in the green, pharma stocks in focus

Equity benchmark indices rose marginally during early hours on Wednesday with pharma stocks gaining ground. At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 250 points or 0.5 per cent at 50,048 while the Nifty 50 ticked higher by 83 points or 0.57 per cent to 14,731.

Most sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the positive terrain with Nifty pharma gaining by 2.4 per cent, IT by 1.3 per cent and auto by 0.7 per cent. Among stocks, Dr Reddy's gained by 3.7 per cent to Rs 4,650 per share while Cipla moved up by 3.4 per cent to Rs 849.40.

IndusInd Bank edged higher by 7.4 per cent to Rs 1,047.95 per share. The other major gainers were Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra and Wipro. However, those which lost were Maruti Suzuki, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, JSW Steel and Tata Steel.

Meanwhile, Asian shares rose as governments around the world looked poised to boost spending to help economies recover from the coronavirus and vaccine roll-out programmes accelerated. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan rose by 0.51 per cent but shares in China fell by 0.06 per cent.

Japan's Nikkei added 0.66 per cent while shares in Seoul rose by 0.44 per cent.