European cues take markets higher

Riding on a positive wave the Sensex has touched the day's new high thus far at 18,082 and the Nifty is hovering around 5,425 up 57 points.

The European markets after opening higher, have further extended gains. CAC is now up nearly 2% while DAX and FTSE are up 1.9% and 1.6% respectively.

Fertiliser stocks are in limelight on the bourses today, on reports that the empowered group of ministers allocated natural gas from the Reliance Industries' D6 field in the Krishna-Godavari basin (KG D-6) to revive eight anaemic state-owned fertiliser units in order to meet the gap in fertiliser production.

RCF, Fact, Khaitan Chemicals, Deepak Fertilisers and GSFC have gained 3-8% each on the BSE.

On the BSE Sectoral Indices Metal and FMCG has pulled considerable gains while Bankex continues to top the charts.IT and Health Care continue to languish at the bottom.

Bharti Airtel continues to top the Sensex gainers list followed by ICICI Bank,ONGC and Hindalco while NTPC,Mahindra & Mahindra and Cipla round up the losers list.

Market breadth continues to be positive with 1828 stocks advances while 1064 declined.