It is a reasonably good start for the markets. The Sensex is quoting at 18117, higher by 67 points and the Nifty is at 5432, up 14 points in early trades.
Wall Street had a sideways session, with the Dow and Nasdaq ending virtually unchanged at 10302 and 2187 respectively. And the Asian markets were also subdued in early trade. The Hang Seng shed 77 points and the Nikkei lost 67 points in early trades.
The leading gainers on the Sensex are Cipla (strengthened by 0.9% at Rs 307), Tata Motors (gained 0.8% at Rs 1010) and Tata Steel (added 0.8% at Rs 522). HDFC, Hero Honda and Maruti are the other significant gainers. And index heavyweight RIL has added 0.4% at Rs 980.
Cairn India has bounced back from lower levels and is quoting at Rs 336, higher by 1.1%, on the BSE. The stock was pounded by 6.3% on the previous day after the company announced the sale of a maximum 51% stake in Vedanta for a consideration of upto $8,480 million (Rs 39,656 crore).
And Sesa Goa is also stable this morning, quoting higher by 0.2% at Rs 323 on the BSE. The stock had tumbled 8.9% on Monday after the company's board approved the acquisition of a 20% strategic stake in Cairn India for a total cash consideration of approximately $3 billion.
And SKS Microfinance has added another 3.7% at Rs 1129 after gaining as much as much as 10% on Day 1.
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On the other hand, the top BSE losers are Hindustan Unilever (weakened by 0.5% atv Rs 268), ONGC (shed 0.4% at Rs 1264) and Tata Power (lost 0.1% at Rs 1314).
And Suzlon Energy has lost another 1.3% at Rs 51 after the company posted consolidated net loss of Rs 912 crore for the June 2010 quarter as against Rs 453 crore during the same quarter a year ago. The stock had plunged by 7.2% to in the previous session.
The market breadth is positive. Out of 1162 stocks traded on the BSE, ther'e are 924 advancing stocks as against 214 declines.