Markets trading steady

After a firm opening, the markets extended their gains further to touch a high of 18,175, up 95 points from the day's opening. The indices subsequently pared some of their initial gains. The Sensex is at 18,147 up 73 points and the Nifty is at 5,444 up 27 points.

On the Asian market front, the Hang Seng is flat at 21,098 and the Nikkei is up eight points at 9,219.

The smallcap index and the midcap index, up 0.9% and 0.8% respectively, are performimg better than the benchmark index at 0.4%.

Among the BSE Sectoral indices,all the indices are in the green, except the Auto index. Bankex and PSU, up 1% each, are topping the charts. The major movers in the Bankex space are Federal Bank, Union Bank and SBI, gaining 2.5% each. And in the PSU space, Indian Bank and Mangalore Refineries added 4% each to emerge as the major movers.

On the Sensex-30 stocks, SBI, up 2.4% at Rs 2825,leads the gainers charts for the second consecutive day. The other significant gainers are TAta Steel, Cipla and ICICI Bank.

On the losers side on the Sensex are Sterlite Industies, down 3%, followed by Reliance Communications, which lost 1.5% and Mahindra & Mahindra, which shed nearly 1% percent.

The market breadth is extremely positive. 1793 stocks advanced as against a mere 718 declines.