The benchmark indices have steadfastly held ground in the past one hour after crawling their way into the positive earlier in the afternoon. The Sensex is quoting at 17986, higher by 28 points and the Nifty is at 5404, up seven points. The midcap index is at 7394, up 28 points and the smallcap index is at 9351, up five points. PSU, realty and FMCG sectors continue to dominate the day's proceedings.
MMTC has singularly been responsible for catapulting the PSU space to the top of the sectoral gainers list. The PSU stock is quoting at Rs 1874, higher by 23%, on the BSE after turning ex-bonus and ex-stock split. In the realty space, HDIL has strengthened by 2.7% at Rs 265 and Indiabulls Real Estate has gained 1.1% at Rs 168. And Hindustan Unilever is calling the shots in the FMCG space, strengthening by 2.1% at Rs 257, with ITC giving company at Rs 307, up 0.1%.
The laggards on the BSE include Bharti Airtel (weakened by 1% at Rs 317), RCom (shed 0.9% at Rs 183) and L&T (lost 0.7% at Rs 1811). And RIL is down 0.2% at Rs 1018).
The market breadth is positive. Out of 2926 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1411 advancing stocks as against 1393 declines.