After starting the trading session with modest gains, equity benchmark indices soon erased gains and were seen trading with a uncertain bias in Tuesday’s trading session.

The S&P BSE Sensex touched a high of 71,569 in early deals, but soon slipped into red to a low of 71,304. The Sensex was seen quoting around 71,370 – up 50 points. The NSE Nifty 50 was seen holding the 21,400 level.

Nestle India up 1.5 per cent was the top gainer among the Sensex 30 stocks, after the company fixed January 05 as the record date for stock split. Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and ITC were the other prominent gainers.

On the flip side, TCS, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra and Asian Paints were the notable losers.

In the broader market, the BSE MidCap index was up 0.1 per cent, while the SmallCap added 0.6 per cent.

Among individual stocks, Vedanta and Siemens were in focus after the former announced Rs 11 per share dividend, and the latter initiated measures to demerge its energy business into a separate entity. Vedanta gained over 2 per cent, while Siemens was up nearly a per cent.

Global Cues

Elsewhere in Asia, markets were mixed even as the Bank of Japan maintained its ultra-loose monetary settings on Tuesday in a widely expected move, underscoring policymakers’ preference to await more clues on whether wages will rise enough to keep inflation durably around its 2 per cent target.