The BSE Sensex maintained gains and the Nifty hovered around 10,900 mark on Friday afternoon on continued buying across telecom, energy, IT and oil & gas counters.

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However, gains were capped as midcaps underperformed along with weakness in ICICI Bank. Positive leads from Asian markets also buoyed sentiments.

At 12.16 pm, the Sensex was up 193 points or 0.54 percent at 36,388. The Nifty was a tad below 10,900, trading at 10,897, up by 47.50 points or 0.44 percent.

Frontline indexes found strong support from Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which continued its gaining trend along with Yes Bank after the private lender announced that Deutsche Bank’s chief of India operations, Ravneet Gill, would be the new boss. HDFC, ITC, TCS, Kotak Bank and Axis Bank also supported.

ICICI Bank, however, was the top drag on indexes as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against former ICICI MD and CEO Chandra Kochhar,

her husband, Nupower Renewables MD Deepak Kochhar and Videocon group MD Venugopal Dhoot in connection with alleged irregularities in the Rs 3,250 crore ICICI Bank-Videocon loan case.

The Nifty MidCap was down by 0.32 percent and the BSE MidCap index slipped 0.27 percent. Broader markets capped gains as Colgate Palmolive, Supreme Industries, Crompton, LIC Housing Finance, Federal Bank, IGL and others traded weak. Support largely came from Edelweiss Finance, Havells and DHFL.

Among index gainers, Yes Bank, Bharti Infratel, Bharti Airtel, UPL, HCL Technologies, rising between 1.5 and 6.5 percent.

UltraTech Cement, Zee Entertainment, Hero MotoCorp, Asian Paints and Grasim shares declined between 1 and 5.5 percent.

UltraTech Cement shares slipped more than 5 percent as Credit Suisse reduced its price target to Rs 3,300, from a previous Rs 3,784, with an 'underperform' rating after its third quarter results on Thursday. The brokerage has cut FY19-20 and FY20-21 earnings per share for the cement company. Citi and Deutsche Bank have retained a 'buy' rating.

Meanwhile, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 389.96 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares to the tune of Rs 94.45 crore on Thursday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges.

The rupee traded at 71.09 against the US dollar at 12.35 pm. The rupee continued its upward journey for a third straight day strengthening by another 10 paise to 70.97 against the US dollar. The home currency had gained 26 paise to end at 71.07 against the greenback on Thursday.

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First Published:Jan 25, 2019 12:43 PM IST