The markets have been hovering around the opening mark in the past one hour. The Sensex is quoting at 17,551, up 32 points and the Nifty is at 5,255, up nine points.
Bharti Airtel rose for the third straight day on reports the company has applied for third-generation mobile spectrum in all the 22 telecom zones. The country's largest mobile services provider by sales advanced by 2.2% at Rs 306. Among the other gainers, SBI strengthened by 1.6% at Rs 2062 and Hero Honda added 1.2% at Rs 1959.
Reliance Communication, Tata Power and ACC are the other significant gainers among the Sensex stocks. And index bellweather Reliance Industries is trading flat at Rs 1074.
On the other hand, HDFC has slipped 1% to Rs 2,706, Sun Pharma has shed 0.8% at Rs 1679 and TCS has shed 0.7% at Rs 821. Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank and DLF are the other major losers.
The market breadth is positive. Out of 2569 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1479 advancing stocks as against 975 declines.