Market opens higher, Nifty reclaims 10,800-level; Motilal Oswal, IIFL crack post SEBI order

Benchmark indices opened on a higher note following global market optimism, ahead of February F&O expiry. Asian shares scaled a 5-month peak on Monday after US President Donald Trump confirmed he would delay a planned increase on Chinese imports as talks between the two sides were making “substantial progress”.

The S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 36,013, up 142 points while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 10,823, up 32 points. Indiabulls Housing Finance, JSW Steel, HeroMoto Corp, Yes Bank and Tata Motors were the top gainers on Nifty while Adani Ports, PowerGrid, Dr Reddy's, GAIL and Titan were among the top draggers.

Motilal Oswal dragged four percent in the opening trade while India Infoline (IIFL) dragged three percent after Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) declared the commodity broking arms of Motilal Oswal and IIFL as not "fit and proper", as part of the action taken in the NSEL case.

All sectoral indices were trading in the green. Nifty Realty was the top sectoral gainer with Unitech, Oberoi Realty, DLF, Prestige gaining between 1-4 percent. The gains came after the GST Council on Sunday reduced the GST rate on under-construction houses. For flats priced more than Rs 45 lakh, the new GST rate applicable from April 1, 2019, stands at 5 percent, against 12 percent currently.

In the broader markets, Nifty Midcap and Nifty Smallcap indices outperformed the frontline indices, up 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

Globally,  Shanghai blue chips jumped 2.8 percent. That brought gains this year to 20 percent, helped in part by Beijing’s efforts to pump new credit into the financial system.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.5 percent to the highest since October, and is up 10 percent for the year so far. Japan’s Nikkei climbed 0.6 percent to levels last seen in mid-December.