Muted opening for Sensex

The Sensex had a muted opening with the BSE benchmark index gaining 18 points at 19,705 and the Nifty flat at 5,917 which added eight points. The broader market space continues to outperform the Sensex with the smallcap and the midcap indices gaining 1% as compared to the Sensex at 0.5% in the positive.

Among the sectoral indices, Consumer Durables and Metal opened up 1% each followed by Power, Auto and Oil & Gas. However, IT is trading flat at 6,706.

The gainers on the Nifty in the opening trades are Sesa Goa gaining 4%, Grasim Industries, BPCL and IDFC adding nearly 2%

On the losers side are Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, Ambuja Cement and Kotak Mahindra Bank losing between 0.2%- 0.8% on the NSE.

On the Asian front, the markets are trading mixed with Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng,Straits Times and Taiwan Weighted are all trading in the positive.

Hong Kong shares advanced after fluctuating in the opening trades due to the gains in Chinese insurers helping to compensate for yesterday'sweakness in property stocks after the People's Bank of China raised interest rates. The Hang Seng Index was up 0.3% at 24,210.

Chinese stocks also rose after a slow start as some analysts said the PBOC may not aggressively raise rates after Tuesday's move.The Shanghai Composite gaining 0.6% to 2,985.

Menawhile, Japanese stocks traded lower  with banks dragging the market as Japan's nuclear crisis remained unresolved, and an impending policy announcement from the Bank of Japan on Thursday. The Nikkei immediately gave up its initial gains to trade lower by 0.2% at 9,596.

The market breadth is very positive. Of the total 2060 stocks traded on the BSE, 1578  stocks have advanced while 417  have declined.