Markets near day's high, heavyweights gain

The markets have recovered from the intra-day low levels in the noon deals on the back of buying visible across the board. The Sensex was at 17,595, up 114 points and the Nifty was at 5,294, higher by 36 points.

Earlier in the day, the markets witnessed a gap down opening on back of negative global cues and the Sensex touched the intra-day low of 17,337.

According to Somil Mehta, Senior Technical Analyst with Sharekhan, "The trend is positive as the benchmark indices are making higher tops and higher bottoms. The Nifty is targeting 5,500 on the upside and has a strong support at 5,200."

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was the top gainer among the Sensex stocks. The stock was trading at Rs 875 higher by 1.6%, Mahindra & Mahindra jumped 1.3% to Rs 845. Bajaj Auto also added 1.2% to Rs 1,736 after the company reported highest ever sales in the month of October. ONGC, HDFC Bank, Tata Power, J P Associates, Jindal Steel, SBI, Sun Pharma, TCS, ITC and Sterlite Industries were also among the gainers, up 0.4-1.2% each.

On the other hand, Herop MotoCorp was the top loser, down 1.5% to Rs 2,110. Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Coal India, Tata Steel, HUL, Tata Motors and Larsen & Toubro were also languishing in trades thus far.

Among the individual stocks, Avanti Feeds was frozen at 5% upper circuit at Rs 148 for the fourteenth consecutive day. The stock has rallied 95% in past three weeks from Rs 76 on October 12, on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Indo Thai Securities was currently trading at Rs 84, a 13% premium against its issue price of Rs 74 per share on the National Stock Exchange. The stock opened at Rs 76 and hit a low of Rs 62.45 in trade thus far.

All the sectoral indices were trading in the green. The BSE Oil & Gas index was the top sectoral gainer, up 1.6% or 143 points to 9,033. Healthcare index also added 53 points to 6,164. Power, FMCG, Bankex, Auto, Consumer Durables, IT and Realty indices were trading higher by 0.4-0.8% each.

Essar Oil, Oil India, HPCL, Gail India, Indian Oil, Petronet LNG, Cairn India and BPCL were the prominent gainers from the oil & gas space. Among the healthcare stocks, Dr Reddy's Lab was the top gainer, up 2% to Rs 1,641. Divis Lab, Piramal Healthcare, Ranbaxy, Apollo Hospitals, Fortis and Biocon were also trading higher by 0.6-1.9% each.

The broader markets were trading on a flat note, the BSE mid-cap index was up 28 points to 6,280 and the small-cap index advanced 21 points to 6,957.

The overall breadth turned positive as 1,353 stocks were advancing while 1,193 were declining.