Markets have given up the opening gains and are trading on a flat note on the back of selling pressure visible in the heavyweight stocks such as Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Industries Larsen & Toubro and State Bank of India. The Sensex is up 20 points at 18,330 while the Nifty has slipped 2 points to 5,571 levels. Markets witnessed a positive opening and the Sensex touched the high of 18,386.
Meanwhile, on the sectoral front, Oil & gas, realty, consumer durables, bankex, FMCG, capital goods and metal indices are down 0.1-0.4% eacvh.
Among the individual stocks, Strides Arcolab has rallied over 6% at Rs 987, also its record high, on back of heavy volumes. A combined around 150,000 shares have already changed hands on the counter in opening deals against an average 200,000 shares that were traded daily in past two weeks.
Disa India has tanked 10% to Rs 2,460 after the company said that its promoter - Disa Holding - has proposed to sell over 10% stake of the company through offer for sale route on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
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(Updated at 9.18 AM)
Markets have opened marginally higher in trades today tracking positive global cues. The Sensex has opened higher by 45 points at 18,354 and the 50 share Nifty has advanced 12 points to open at 5,586.
The Asian markets were trading marginally higher boosted by a positive tone in U.S. equities last week, while the yen fell to a near seven-month low against the dollar on expectations a new government after next month's election in Japan may deliver more stimulus.
Hang Seng was up 124 points at 21,282, Nikkei jumped 120 points to 9,144, Straits Times was up 6 points at 2,951 and the Seoul Composite advanced 22 points to 1,882.
In the US markets, the first round of talks aimed at avoiding the "fiscal cliff" caused a temporary rise in equities on Friday, signaling Wall Street's recent declines could be a buying opportunity. Although stocks ended moderately higher on Friday, it was not enough to offset losses for the week. The S&P 500 was down 1.5%, while both the Dow and the Nasdaq fell 1.8%.
Back home, Bharti Airtel is the top Sensex gainer. The stocks has advanced nearly 3% to Rs 309. Maruti Suzuki, Infosys, Wipro, Tata Steel, BHEL, Dr Reddy's Labs, Larsen & Toubro, Hero MotoCorp, NTPC, ICICI Bank and Mahindra and Mahidra are also among the gainers, up 0.4-1.4% each.
On the other hand, HUL, HDFC, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries, ITC, Tata Motors, Coal India and SBI are among the laggards.
Most of the sectoral indices have opened flat. Meanwhile, the BSE teck index with gain of 0.8% is the top gainer. Realty, IT, healthcare, capital goods, auto, power, PSU and metal indices have also advanced 0.2-0.8% each. While, FMCG and oil & gas indices have opened marginally in the red.
The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices are outperforming the benchmark indices. with a gain 0.4% each.
The overall breadth is positive as 734 stocks are advancing while 388 are declining.
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