Market near day's high

Markets are trading near the day's high level in the noon deals. The Sensex has advanced 142 points to 17,458 and the Nifty is up 45 points at 5,320. Earlier in the day the market opened on a quiet note.

According to Somil Mehta, Sr. Technical Analyst (Equity) at Sharekhan, "Medium term trend for the markets remains positive but in the short term Nifty seems to be in a range of 5,400 and 5,200 levels, break on either side will determine the trend going forward."

The Asian markets were trading on a subdued note. Hang Seng was up 34 points at 20,992, Shanghai was at 2,378, up by a points while the Nikkei was down 55 points at 10,086.

Back home, TCS is the top Sensex gainer, up 3.2% at Rs 1,170. DLF, Larsen & Toubro, BHEL, HUL, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel are also trading higher by 1.3-2.7% each.

On the other hand, Hindalco, Jindal Steel, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, Wipro, Hero MotoCorp, Sterlite Industries and ONGC are among the laggards on the BSE benchmark index.

Capital goods, realty and IT stocks are witnessing buying. The BSE Capital Goods index is the top sectoral gainer up nearly 2% or 192 points at 10,223. Realty index has also jumped 2% to 1,811. IT, Bankex, Power, Healthcare, PSU, FMCG and Oil & Gas indices have also advanced 0.3-1.3% each.

At the same time, metals and consumer durable stocks are under a mild selling pressure. Both the indices are trading marginally lower.

Shares of cement manufacturers such as Century Textiles and Industries, Kesoram Industries, India Cements, Ambuja Cements, Prism Cement, Jaiprakash Associates and ACC are trading higher on back of huge volumes.

According to reports, cement companies will benefit from abolition of differential price-based excise duty, only 5% import duty on coal and change in structure of charging excise duty from factory gate to retail sale price minus 30% abatement.

The broader markets are trading higher. The BSE mid-cap index has added over 1% or 65 points to 6,401 levels and the small-cap index is up 0.75% at 6,680 levels.

The overall breadth is positive as 1,517 stocks are advancing while 1,118 are declining.