Sensex near day's high; HUL slips

Heavy weights, Reliance and Infosys lead the upmove.

The markets continue to remain steady with buying momentum seen in Reliance and IT stocks. The Sensex is now at 17,642, up 117 points. The NSE Nifty is 34 points higher at 5,283.

TCS has gained 2.5% at Rs 799. Wipro, Reliance Infrastructure and Infosys have advanced around 2% each to Rs 719, Rs 1,015 and Rs 2,656, respectively.

The other major gainers are Tata Steel, Jaiprakash Associates, HDFC and Tata Motors, up 1% each.

Hindustan Unilever and Mahindra & Mahindra have slipped 3% each to Rs 231 and Rs 529, respectively.

The other major losers are Tata Power, Bharti Airtel and Maruti, down 1.5% each.

The market breadth is positive, out of 2,740 shares traded, 2,061 have advanced and 604 have declined so far on the BSE.

Among the sectoral indices, IT index has gained 2% at 5,326.

NIIT, TCS and Mphasis have added 2.5% each at Rs 59, Rs 800 and Rs 635, respectively on the IT index.

On the other hand the auto and the FMCG indices have slipped 0.5% each.