The Sensex closed for the day marginally higher at 18,568 gaining 55 points and the Nifty added 20 points to end the day at 5,562.
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(Updated at 1437 hrs)
The markets continue to move sideways into the last hour of trading for the day with the Sensex up 52 points at 18,570 while the Nifty added 15 points at 5,557. The BSE benchmark index is currently up 115 points from the day's low of 18,455.
In a mildly volatile day, the markets started marginally lower shrugging off positive global cues as concerns over rising interest rates and election results continued to push investors to the sidelines.Thereon the markets moved to register an intra-day low only to recover and trade higher in the green territory tracking mostly firm Asian stocks and higher US index futures. Realty, Metal and IT indices lead the gains throughout the day while Oil & Gas index remained a major laggard.
Among the sectoral indices, PSU and Oil & Gas down 1% each continue to move south. The draggers in the oil & gas space are ONGC, Cairn India and Gail India down 1% each. Among the PSUs, Bank of India, NTPC, Coal India, United Bank and Gail India lsoing between 1-2% weighs in the afternnon trades.
Among the Sensex gainers for the day are Hero Honda, DLF, SBI, Tata Motors, Sterlite Industries and Reliance Communication gaining between 1-3%
Tata Power, Maruti Suzuki, L&T, Bajaj Auto and Cipla down 0.1% - 1% are the major losers among the Sensex.
The market breadth continues to be positive. Of the total 2839 stocks traded on the BSE, 1553 stocks have advanced while 1147 have declined.