Markets firm up on strong GDP numbers

The markets have firmed up in late morning trades, thanks to a positive surprise on the GDP front. India's Q2 GDP grew at 7.9% vs 7.1% last year.

The Sensex touched a high of 16,951, and is now up 296 points at 16,928. The Nifty is up 92 points at 5,033.

Sterlite, Hindalco and Tata Motors have moved up nearly 4% each to Rs 861, Rs 138 and Rs 653, respectively.

Tata Steel has gained 3.5% at Rs 564. Jaiprakash Assocaites and Reliance Communications have advanced around 2% each to Rs 221 and Rs 172, respectively.

Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank have added around 2.5% each at Rs 291 and Rs 872, respectively.

DLF, Tata Power, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra and ITC are up over 2% each.

The market breadth is extremely positive - out of 2,288 stocks traded so far, 1,730 have advanced, 502 have declined.

Tata Steel is the top traded stock with a turnover of Rs 55.64 crore followed by SBI (Rs 50.24 crore), HDIL (Rs 43.43 crore), Suzlon (Rs 35.67 crore) and GMDC (Rs 32.28 crore).

IFCI leads the volume chart with trades of around 6.4 million shares followed by Suzlon (4.7 million), Unitech (3.4 million), GMDC (2.4 million) and Satyam (2.1 million).