Sensex firm; market breadth +ve

The Sensex continues to display firm movement after a positive start this morning. The index so far has touched a highh of 17,055, and is now up 169 points 17,018.

The NSE Nifty is up 52 points at 5,051.

Maruti has rallied 3.7% to Rs 1,535.

Sterlite, Tata Motors and Sun Pharma have surged 3% each to Rs 863, Rs 639 and Rs 1,495, respectively.

SBI and DLF have moved up 2.8% each to Rs 2,363 and Rs 379, respectively. Hero Honda has added 2.3% to Rs 1,616.

Tata Steel has advanced 2% to Rs 532. Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and ACC are the other prominent gainers.

TCS, however, has slipped 1% to Rs 663. Wipro, ITC and Infosys are the other notable losers.

The market breadth is fairly positive - out of 2,323 stocks traded so far, 1,638 have advanced, 625 have declined and the rest are unmoved.