Sensex ends down 17pts

The Sensex has ended (provisional) at 16,428, down 17 points. The NSE Nifty has finally settled (provisional) at 4,928, down two points.
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(Updated at 1424hrs)

The markets pared gains owing to weakness in the realty stocks. Anant Raj Industries and Indiabulls Real Estate were the major losers on the realty index, down over 2% each.  The Sensex is now at 16, 569, up 123 points. The NSE Nifty is 34 points higher at 4,965.

Among the Sensex-30 stocks, Reliance Communication has zoomed 10% to Rs 146 and Reliance Infrastcruture has soared 8% to Rs 1,068, respectively.

Reliance Industries, Jaiprakash Associates and Larsen & Toubro are up 2-3% each.

Tata Motors, Sterlite Industries, Hero Honda and Hindustan Unilever are the other major gainers, up 1-2% each on the BSE.

On the other hand HDFC and Grasim Industries are down 2% each at Rs 2,667 and Rs 2,413, respectively.

The market breadth is positive, out of 2,848 shares traded, 1,943 have advanced and 817 have declined so far on the BSE..

Among the sectoral indices, barring realty index, all the indices are in green. The Oil & gas index and the power index have advanced 2% each to 9,902 and 2,967, respectively.