The benchmark indices have been virtually unchanged in mid-morning trades. The Sensex continues to flirt with the 18k mark, which it had momentarily breached at the onset of the trading sesson. The benchmark is now quoting at 17977, higher by 36 points and the Nifty is at 5379, up 13 points. The auto and realty sectors have gained more than 1% each at 7840 and 3489 respectively.
Among the leading stock gainers on the BSE, ACC has added more weight and is now up 2.2% at Rs 972. Tata Motors has added 1.6% at Rs 786 and DLF has gained 1.6% at Rs 333. Hero Honda, Grasim and Maruti are the other major gainers. And index heavyweight RIL is trading flat, with a positive bias, at Rs 1124.
The Sensex losers are Sun Pharma (weakened by 1.3% at Rs 1796), HDFC (shed 0.9% at Rs 2797) and ITC (lost 0.7% at Rs 264). And IT stocks remain sluggish, with TCS, Wipro and TCS constituting the list of laggards.
The market breadth is positive. Out of 2710 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1910 advancing stocks as against 723 declines.
