Lacklustre trade continues

Sensex was up 50 points at 18,554. Nifty was up 12 points at 5,573.  BSE capital goods and IT sectors moved up in trades. The small and mid-cap indices outperformed the benchmark and were up 0.6% each.
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(Updated at 1145 hrs)

Markets continue to gain in late morning trades, albeit off the day's high. The Sensex had hit its highest in more than two weeks at 18,636. However, profit booking saw the index slipping 122 points from there to touch a low of 18,514. The index was up 44 points at 18,547. Nifty was up 15 points at 5,575.

"Market has started to correct from Nov 2010 and till now we have taken support around 5200-5300 which is a long term trendline support, last 4-5days bounce can be considered as Technical bounce till 5750 above close is not seen. 200DMA of Nifty is 5750 which is important for any fresh rally and if we notice market has been in a range in last 15months with no major change in Index," says A K Prabhakar Senior Vice President Equity Research, Anand Rathi.

Global cues pulled markets higher. Asian markets traded marginally in green with Nikkei gaining 0.12% at 9,705. Hang Seng was down 0.3% at 23,604.

Capital goods index jumped 0.7% to 13,186 on renewed buying. FMCG stocks went up after data on Tuesday showed that farm output rose a strong 7.5% in Q4 March 2011. Auto stocks were up marginally after Maruti Suzuki and TVS Motors came out with good monthly sales numbers.

Maruti Suzuki reported a 1.9% increase in total sales for May to 1,04,073 units from 1,02,175 units in the same month last year. The stock was up 1.5% at Rs 1,245. TVS Motors' total sales in May rose over 18% on year to 185,930 units from 156,980 units a year ago.

Among Sensex stocks, NTPC surged 2.6% to Rs 174. Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel, among telecom stocks, rose 2% each. SBI, L&T, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Infrastructure and TCS were among the other gainers.

Aviation stocks rose on reports state-run oil marketing companies have cut jet fuel prices by about 4%. Jet Airways gained 1.5% to Rs 454. SpiceJet added 1.7% to Rs 41. Kingfisher was up marginally at Rs 43.

However, DLF shed 1.7% to Rs 234. Tata Motors, ICICI Bank and Tata Steel dropped around 1% each. Index heavyweigt, Reliance, dropped 0.5% at Rs 946.

BSE market breadth was positive. Out of 2,596 stocks traded, 1,592 have advanced while 893 have declined.