The markets have strengthened in the last one hour of trades, mainly on account of fresh buying in energy and realty space. The Sensex is now up 181 points at 19,318.
The NSE Nifty has advanced 43 points to 5795.
The BSE Realty index, which was down 2% an hour ago, saw a recovery of 1% at 2,725. Indiabulls Real Estate up 6% was the top gainer on the index, followed by Orbit Corp up 3% and Phoenix Mills up 2%. However, DB Realty continued to weather rough weather, and was down 10%, followed by Anant Raj Industries down 4% and Parsvnath Developers down 3%.
The BSE IT index was overtaken by the Oil & Gas index, up 147 points at 10,000. Energy stocks at the top of the charts were Reliance and Cairn India, both up 3% each, followed by GAIL India up 1%.
Reliance Industries and BHEL, both up 3% each, were the top gainers on the Sensex, followed by TCS up 2%. ADAG stocks such as Reliance Infra and RComm were down 4% and 2% respectively, while ACC followed as one of the top losers, down 2%.
The Mid Cap and Small Cap did not show any major movements, and both the indices continued to tread in negative territory.
Overall, the market breadth was negative as only 1149 stocks advanced, as compared to a decline of 1625 stocks.