Nifty hovers around 5,600; IT gains

Broader markets advance with mid and smallcap indices up 0.5-0.8%

Markets edged higher in a volatile morning session on account of gains in heavyweight names like ICICI bank, Infosys and L&T.  At 1025 hrs, the Sensex was up 50 points at 19,030 while the Nifty was flat with a positive bias at 5,597.

Broader markets advanced in the morning deals with the smallcap index up 0.8% and the midcap index added 0.5%, both outperforming the Sensex which was marginally up 0.2%.

Among the sectoral indices, Capital Goods, Health Care, IT and Teck indices gained over 1% each.

Bankex and Power indices were flat while Auto, Metal, Oil & Gas, PSU, Consumer Durables, FMCG and Realty continued to languish in the red, down 0.2-1%.

Along with the IT heavyweights, ICICI Bank, Cipla and L&T gained 2-3% and were the top gainers on the Sensex.

Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, ONGC and Dr Reddys Lab up 1% each were the other notable gainers.

On the losing end were Tata Power, Coal India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever and Sesa Goa, down 2-3.5%.

Reliance Industries, SBI, Tata Motors and BHEL, too were in the negative 0.6-1%

The market breadth improved with 980 advances as against 575 declines on the BSE.