Realty on firm ground

The markets continue to trade around their intraday highs. The Sensex is up 88 points at 18232 and the Nifty is at 5466, up 26 points.

Meanwhile, the European markets have opened in the green. The FTSE, CAC and the DAX are up 1% each in early trades.
 
There is not much movement among the BSE sectoral indices. Realty, up 2.5%, continues to lead while Oil & Gas and IT have extended their losses. This is the second consecutive week when the realty index has performed well. All the 13 scrips in this index have advanced; the major gainers in this space are Sobha Developers and Anant Raj Industries, gaining 4% each, followed by heavyweights Unitech and DLF (up 3% each).

Metals have resumed their uptrend after a period of consolidation, gaining 0.9%. Hindustan Zinc has gained 2.3%, Jindal Steel is up 1.7% and Sesa Goa has added 1.3%.

Among the Sensex scrips, DLF (up 3% at Rs 316) is the top gainer, closely followed by Reliance Communications (added 2.6% at Rs 177) and ICICI Bank (up 2.4% at at Rs 975).

On the other hand, Wipro continues to lead the losers list, down 0.7% at Rs 430. The other losers are HDFC Bank and Cipla, having shed 0.6% each at Rs 2081 and Rs 319 respectively.

The market breadth continues to reamain positive, with 2016 stocks advancing and a mere 858 declining.