Markets gain strength

The markets have gained strength in the last few minutes of trade. The Sensex is now up 100 points at 16,552, and the Nifty is up 27 points at 5250.

Mahindra & Mahindra has rallied 4% to Rs 632. Tata Motors, Reliance Communications and Sterlite are the other major gainers.
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(Updated at 1345 hrs)

The Sensex slipped into the red for sometime owing to weakness in the FMCG and the consumer durable stocks. The Sensex has however rebounded into the green and is now at 17,461, up 50 points and the Nifty is 10 points higher at 5,233.

Among the Sensex-30 stocks, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have added 2% each at Rs 776 and Rs 620, respectively.

The other major gainers are HDFC, Sterlite Industries and Infosys are up over 1% each on the BSE.

ACC, HUL and Reliance Communications have slipped over 1% each to Rs 865, Rs 256 and Rs 184, respectively. The other prominent losers on the BSE are Hero Honda, Jindal Steel, NTPC and BHEL, down 0.5% each.

The market breadth is positive, out of 2,869 shares traded, 1,471 have advanced and 1,292 have declined so far on the BSE.

The BSE midcap and the smallcap indices are flat, up 0.2% each.

Among the sectoral indices, auto and IT indices are up 1% each while FMCG index has slipped 0.5%, respectively. HUL and Tata Tea are down 1% each on the FMCG index.