Indian shares take a breather, open with marginal gains

Equity benchmarks opened on Tuesday on a positive note with early gains of around 200 points taking global cues but pared most of it on profit booking by traders. At 10:26 am, 30-share index Sensex was trading 0.44 percent higher at 25,878.51, while 50-share index Nifty was at 7,970.40 points, up 0.54 percent.

Most of the Asian markets traded in the green as Wall Street closed at a record high on the hopes of possible fiscal expansionary policies of American President-elect Donald Trump.

Also, jump in crude oil prices as Russia hinted at production cut and a weakening dollar provided support to the market.

In early morning trade, Hindalco was the top gainer with the stock up nearly 4 percent followed by Zee Entertainment, Cipla, Maruti Suzuki and Adani Ports. Among major losers, BHEL lost 3.28 percent to trade at Rs 124.80, followed by Bosch, Gail, NTPC and Power Grid Corporation.

As a whole, market breadth was marginally positive with 1,128 companies trading in the green and 894 declines.

Among sectors, auto, FMCG, healthcare, consumer durables were providing support to the index with only capital goods pulling down the market.

Meanwhile, concerns over growth slowdown on the back of ongoing cash crunch weighed on investors' sentiment. Market participants were of the opinion that current market had already factored in the impact of demonetisation drive.

Rupee, which weakened considerably last week, was trading 0.10 percent higher at 68.22 per dollar on Tuesday morning.