Markets pare gains - Sensex up 88pts

After a strong movement through the day so far, the markets pared the day's gains, with the Sensex at 18,294 up 88 points, and the Nifty at 5,506 up 26 points.

Gainers on the BSE benchmark were led by BHEL at Rs 2,045 up nearly 3%, followed by Hindalco Industries at Rs 201, buoyed by a 1% rise in Shanghai's June copper futures contract, and TCS at Rs 1,086 both up 2%.

Infrastructure firm DLF was the highest loser on the Sensex down a little over 1% at rs 232, while Reliance Infra at Rs 631 and Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,168 were both down nearly 1%.

In the broader markets, the Mid-cap index gained 0.3% at 6,626, while the Small-cap index advanced 0.6% at 7,915.

Realty stocks continued to rule the sectoral chart up 2% at 2,158. Top gainers in this sector were Unitech at Rs 40 up by a whopping 9%, followed by Parsvnath Developers at Rs 40 up 5% and Orbit Corp at Rs 52 up 4%.

Capital Goods stocks also gained on the back of susutained buying in the sector; the index was up 1% at 12,723. Significant gainers in this space were Lakshmi Machine Works at Rs 2,280 up 6%, BHEL at Rs 2,046 up 3% and Alstom Projects at Rs 542 up 2%.

The Oil & GAs index slipped slightly further since noon, and the index was at 9,853 down 0.3%. Gail India at Rs 458 down 2% was the major loser amongst the energy stocks, while Cairn India at Rs 352, Petronet LNG at Rs 121 and Reliance Industries at Rs 1,010 were all down 0.3%.

The market breadth remained positive, with 1,510 advancing stocks versus 1,219 declining stocks.