Firm trades continue

Reliance Industries and L&T among the top gainers

Markets continue to trade firm on account of gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries and L&T. At 11:20 am, the Sensex up 74 points at 20,113 and the Nifty gained 13 points at 6,077.

Meanwhile, in the broader markets, smallcaps gained 0.4% since the start of the trade, outperforming the Sensex up 0.3% and the midcap index up 0.1%.

On the sectoral front, Oil & Gas, Capital Goods, Power, Metal and FMCG indices, up 0.3-2% were the top ones in the green. On the other hand, IT, Auto, Realty and Bankex indices were in the negative, down 0.1-0.5%.

Among the Sensex-30, Reliance Industries, BHEL, Jindal Steel and Bharti Airtel up 2% each were the top gainers. The other notable gainers were Maruti Suzuki, L&T, Dr Reddys Lab and     Gail India up 1% each.

On the other hand, Sun Pharma, TCS, Cipla, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and ONGC down 1% each were the top losers.

In other stocks, Tecpro Systems rallied 7% to Rs 160 after the company said that it has booked orders worth of Rs 2,300 crore so far in current financial year, compared to Rs 1,638 crore during the same period last year.

TV18 Broadcast was trading higher by over 4% at Rs 36.95 after reporting consolidated net profit at Rs 21.3 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2012 against a net loss of Rs 53.5 crore in the year ago quarter, due to higher revenues and fall in operating expenditure.

Arshiya International was locked in lower circuit of 5% at Rs 46.45, its lowest level since March 2009 on BSE, with no buyers on the counter. A combined 42,419 shares have already changed hands on the counter so far and there are pending sell orders for 7.11 million shares on BSE and NSE.

Oberoi Realty was trading higher by 2.3% at Rs 324 after reporting a 32% year-on-year growth in consolidated net profit to Rs 134 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 on back of higher sales.

The market breadth was positive. 1268 stocks advanced while 1071 stocks declined on the BSE.