Sensex off day's high, up 150pts

Markets continued to trade on a firm note in noon deals. However, the Sensex fell from the day's high of 17,700 and was at 17,632, up 150 points and the Nifty was at 5,306, up 40 points, at 1255 hours.

According to Shailesh Kadam, AVP, Institutional Derivatives, PINC, "The maximum upside for Nifty is 5400-5450. We don't see markets moving past those levels in sometime now. The index will keep moving in the tight range of 5200-5450."

Metal stocks witnessed renewed buying interest. Sterlite Industries was the top gainer among the Sensex stocks, up 3.2% to Rs 125, Tata Steel advanced 2.5% to Rs 473 and Hindalco was also trading higher by 2% at Rs 138. J P Associates, BHEL, Hero MotoCorp, Sun Pharma, SBI, Jindal Steel, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, DLF and NTPC were also trading higher by 1-2.4% each. On the other hand, Tata Power, HUL and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the notable losers.

Among the individual stocks, Rupa & Company has moved higher by 5% to Rs 153 on reporting 47% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in net profit to Rs 16.06 crore for the quarter ended September 30, compared to Rs 10.94 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

Power equipment makers such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), BGR Energy Systems, BF Utilities, Thermax and Siemens were trading higher for the second day in a row on reports that the government will consider imposing higher duty on imported power equipment, which may work to the advantage of domestic power equipment manufacturers.

Sun TV Network has rallied 7% to Rs 292, extending the previous day’s gain of 5%, after the board of directors declared an interim dividend of Rs 3.75 a share (75%) on the face value of Rs 5 per share.

All the sectoral indices were trading higher. The BSE Metal index was the top gainer, up 2.2% or 260 points to 11,912. Realty index advanced 35 points to 1,944. Capitall Gods, Bankex, Consumer Durables, IT, Power, Auto, Oil & Gas and FMCG indices were also trading higher by 0.4-1.8% each in trades thus far.

HDIL was the top gainer among the realty stocks, up 5% to Rs 103. Indiabulls Real Estate, Anant Raj Industries, Parsvanath Developers, Unitech, Sobha Developers and Godrej Properties were also trading higher by 1.6-4.8% each.

The broader markets were also higher by 1% each. The BSE mid-cap index was at 6,315, up 64 points and the small-cap index jumped 58 points to 6,989.

The overall breadth was positive as 1,632 stocks were advancing while 946 were declining.