Broader markets outperform; Nifty nears 6,250

Tata Power, TCS, Sun Pharma and Wipro among the top gainers

Markets continue to remain flat with a positive bias in morning deals with the gains in IT heavyweights and ITC aiding the benchmark indices to remain in green.

At 1025 hrs, the Sensex was up 46 points at 21,020 and the Nifty gained seven points to trade around the 6,260 levels.

Meanwhile, there was some buying in the broader markets with both the mid and smallcap indices gaining 0.8-1%.

On the sectoral front, Bankex, Realty, Oil & Gas and Metal indices slipped into the negative, losing 0.1-0.5%.

Power index edged higher since the opening trades and gained 1.2% along with IT, Health Care and Teck indices, all adding 1% each.

Tata Power, TCS, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Wipro, Tata Motors, NTPC, Coal India and Maruti Suzuki were the top gainers, up 1-1.6%.

Bajaj Auto, BHEL, SSLT, HDFC, Bharti Airtel and Hindalco which dipped 1-2% were the notable losers.

Among other stocks, shares of rice exporting firms soared up to 10% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on reports that the country has reported a record rise in exports during the previous marketing year.

Kohinoor Foods is locked in upper circuit of 10% at Rs 41.35, while LT Foods too jumped 10% at Rs 87.90 and KRBL by nearly 9% at Rs 3.20 on BSE.

Torrent Pharmaceuticals is trading higher by 3.4% at Rs 498, extending its over 13% rally in past four days, after reporting 33% year-on-year growth in adjusted net profit at Rs 149 crore for the second quarter ended September 2013 due to higher operational income.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE as the broader markets logged in gains. 1,060 stocks advanced while 573 stocks declined.