Markets traded on a strong note in the past one hour of trade, the Sensex was at the day's high at 18,970 up 110 points and the Nifty was up 27 points at 5681.
HDFC was the top gainer, the stock was trading higher by 2.7% at Rs 659, TCS was up 2.2% at Rs 1144. ITC, Cipla, Infosys, HDFC Bank, Wipro and Bajaj Auto were also among the gainers up 1.9% - 1.1% each. On the other hand, Reliance Infrastructure was the top loser, the stock was down 6.1% at Rs 749 followed by Reliance Communication, down 3.3% at Rs 133. Jaiprakash Associates, Hero Honda, DLF, Sterlite Industries, Jiondal Steel and Tata Power were also trading lower by 2.6% - 1% each
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On the sectoral front, BSE IT index continued to remain the top gainer the index was up 1.8% or 115 points at 6554, Teck index was up 1.3% at 3864, FMCG index added 1.2% and was at 3629 and the BSE banking index- Bankex was also among the gainer up 107 points at 11,958. Meanwhile, Capital Goods, Oil & Gas and Healthcare indices which were in the red earlier, managed to recover and were trading higher.
On the other hand BSE Realty index continued to remain the top loser followed by Power, Metal, Auto and PSU indices.
Among the IT stocks, TCS was the top gainer followed by Oracle Financials, Tech Mahindra and Infosys. ITC was the top gainer among the FMCG stocks up 1.54% at Rs 172 followed by Tata Global Beverages, United Spirits, United Breweries Nestle India and Hindustan Unilever.
Anant Raj Industries shed 3.6% at Rs 96 and was the top loser in the realty pack, followed by Parsvanath Developers, Indiabulls Real Estate, Orbit Corp, Sobha Developers and DLF down 3.3%-1.9% each.
The broader markets continued to remain under pressure. The BSE mid-cap index was down 59 points or 0.8% at 7164 and small-cap index was down 73 points at 8920.
The overall market breadth was negative as 1762 stocks advanced while 961 stocks declined.