The Sensex is quoting at 17579, higher by 75 points and the Nifty is at 5282, up 28 points.
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(Updated at 1358pm)
The afternoon session has been rather quiet. The Sensex is quoting at 17584, higher by 80 points and the Nifty is at 5274, up 20 points. But the deceptively calm exterior conceals a lot of underlying activity. The realty sector continues to be in the thick of action, although it has slipped off the highs of the day and the metals space has lost the early-morning glow.
The realty index still figures among the leading sectoral gainers on the BSE at 3466. However, taking into consideration its intra-day high of 3500, there has been some lost ground there. Reliance Infra is up 0.8% at Rs 1138 and DLF has added 0.7% at Rs 311. And among the non-index realty stocks, HDIL has gained 1.8% at Rs 270 and Unitech is up 1.6% at Rs 84. But stocks such as Ackruti City 7 and Parsvnath Developers have been among the laggards in this space. Ackruti City has shed 0.9% at Rs 537, while the latter has lost 0.4% at Rs 126.
The metal space has flattened out at 17737 after touching an intra-day high of 17913. Sesa Goa, Jai Corp have added about a per cent each, while Sail, Tata Steel and Hindalco are down by a similar margin.
And cement stocks, including UltraTech Cement, Ambuja Cements, Madras Cements and India Cements, have declined in the range of 2-5% each after reporting disappointing financial results for the March 2010 quarter.
The market breadth remains strong though, with two advancing stocks behind every decline.
