Market Live: Sensex, Nifty, Midcap open mildly higher; ONGC, GAIL gain

10:20 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks are trading steady after witnessing a mildly higher opening, with the Sensex trading around 50 points higher, while the Nifty held 10,450.

At 10:20 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 53.16 points or 0.16% at 33846.54, and the Nifty up 16.70 points or 0.16% at 10459.90. The market breadth is positive as 1,637 shares advanced, against a decline of 697 shares, while 465 shares were unchanged.

Dr Reddy’s is trading higher after seeing over 4 percent intraday fall on Wednesday. Other index gainers include Coal India and ONGC.

Tata Motors, HCL Tech and ICICI Bank are the index losers.

Here are the top headlines at 10 am from Moneycontrol News’ Anchal Pathak

9:56 am Management Speak: Ashok Leyland is on a tear with a record number of commercial vehicle sales in December 2017. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Gopal Mahadevan, CFO of the company spoke at length about the same. We are seeing new truck demand from chemical industry, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector and e-commerce, said Mahadevan. According to him, goods and services tax (GST) has had a positive effect on demand. He expects 10 percent growth in industry volume by the end of FY18.

9:50 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of SJVN and Unichem Laboratories zoomed to their 52-week high, gaining 15 percent and 6 percent respectively in the early trade on Thursday as the companies are going to consider buyback of shares on January 8.

The board meeting of SJVN will be held on January 08, 2018, to consider the proposal for buyback of the fully paid-up equity shares of the company.

For prevention of insider trading in dealing with securities of SJVN, the trading window shall remain closed from Jan 03, 2018 to Jan 10, 2018 (both days inclusive), in connection with the above scheduled meeting.

9:40 am Market Outlook: Dharmesh Shah of ICICI Direct.com Research said the research house believes that any correction from hereon should be used as an incremental buying opportunity as Q3FY18 earnings expectations and Budget expectations would influence investor sentiment.

Prior to the Nifty hitting a record high last week, broader markets were already quoting at their life-time highs, as replicated by the NSE Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices.

Moreover, while the Nifty made a lower low between mid-November and early-December, neither the midcap nor the Smallcap index confirmed these developments in the Nifty as they formed higher lows.

All these points to a robustness in the bullish trend of the broader markets. This is something which we believe also bodes well for benchmark indices.

9:31 am Stake Sale: Public sector lender Dena Bank has invited bids to sell its 1.56 percent stake in NSDL, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting Cogencis.

The stock rallied more than 4 percent after stake sale news.

9:28 am Buzzing: Shares of Navkar Corporation added 4 percent in the early trade as Ashish Kacholia has acquired stake in the company.

Investor, Ashish Rameshchandra Kacholia has bought 10,00,000 shares (0.7 percent) of the company at Rs 187 on the NSE.

Also, Everest Finance And Investment Company bought 10,00,000 shares at Rs 187.06 on the BSE.

9:21 am Infosys CEO salary: Infosys CEO Salil Parekh will be paid a fixed salary of Rs 6.5 crores and would be eligible for variable pay of Rs 9.75 crores at the end of the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to a top company executive.

“Infosys CEO Salil Parekh will be paid a fixed salary of Rs 6.5 crores. He would be eligible for variable pay of Rs 9.75 crores at the end of the fiscal year,” independent board member at Infosys Kiran Mazumdar Shaw told PTI here.

Former CEO Vishal Sikka earned USD 6.75 million in FY17 much to disliking of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy.

Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala is getting a bit over USD 2 million.

Shaw, who is part of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC), said Parekh will also receive Rs 3.25 crores in restricted stock units.

“He will also get Rs 13 crores in annual performance equity grants,” she said.

Parekh will also get a one-time equity grant of Rs 9.75 crores, Shaw said.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks started off trade on a positive note, with the Nifty hovering around 10,450 level.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 56.99 points at 33,850.37 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 16 points to 10,459.20.

ONGC , Axis Bank, L&T, GAIL, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Labs and Adani Ports were early gainers.

Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Tech Mahindra were early losers.

Nifty Midcap was up 0.2 percent.

Jubilant Foodworks, GM Breweries, SJVN, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Navkar Corp gained 2-12 percent.

Nitesh Estates shot up 20 percent on a media report that Chinese company Fosun is looking for Rs 800 crore stake in company.