Sensex moves sideways, up 150pts

After a gap up opening led by IT stocks and favorable monsoon forecast, the Sensex continues to move sideways. The index is up 157 points at 19,279 hovering around the starting values of the day while the Nifty added 48 points at 5,788. Continuing yesterday's outperformance, the smallcap and the midcap indices have added 1% each as compared to the BSE benchmark index, up 0.8%

Among the sectoral indices on the BSE, Realty and IT indices have added 2% each and continue to lead the gains. Metal, Consumer Durables and Auto indices up 1% each are the other significant gainers.Capital Goods index up 0.4% is the only laggard in the morning trades.

The top gainers among the Sensex-30 stocks are Mahindra & Mahindra and TCS up nearly 3% followed by DLF, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors and Hindalco adding between 1-2% each.

Hero Honda down 3.5% at Rs 1715 continues to loose for the second consecutive day and is the only loser on the Sensex.

HCL Technologies, a medium sized software services provider which posted a better than expected results has pared some of its morning gains. The scrip is currently trading at Rs 508, up 7%. Earlier, at the start of the day the stocks had hit an intra-day high of Rs 522.

The market breadth continues to be very positive. Of the total 2604 stocks traded on the BSE, 1853 stocks have advanced while 677 declined.