Mkts trading higher; RIL, Infosys, Bharti, ITC lead

ALSO READ See Key Market Stats - Top Gainers/ Losers, Most Actives, Highs/Lows See how Global Markets are trading Indian ADRs Nifty BSE | NSE 25/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

At 11.29 hrs IST, the markets were trading higher but off the day's high. Stocks like Reliance, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, ONGC and HDFC were the major contributors to the indices. Except FMCG all the sectoral indices were trading positive. Metals, banks, realty, capital goods, auto, oil & gas and power stocks witness good buying interest.

At 11.29 hrs IST, the Sensex was up 184.04 points or 1.78% at 10532.87, and the Nifty was up 48.95 points or 1.52% at 3260.

The market breadth was positive, about 2037 shares advanced, 911 shares declined, and 137 shares were unchanged.

Sandeep Bhatia of Kotak Institutional Equities, feels that the extent of bull run in the markets comes as a surprise. "The current market is exactly opposite of the October-November market. At that time, there was complete risk aversion and valuations completely fell off a cliff. Now, the risk aversion is coming off and risk appetite is increasing, which is why the market has gone up sharply in the last three weeks." He sees 10% upside in the near-term.

Top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco at Rs 59.75 up 6.03%, Reliance Comm at Rs 207 up 5.53%, M&M at Rs 442.70 up 5.38%, DLF at Rs 213.15 up 4.82% and HDFC at Rs 1,657.05 up 4.71%.

The BSE midcap and smallcap indices were up 1.8% and 2.2% respectively.

Top gainers on the BSE Smallcap were Bajaj Electric at Rs 180.60 up 20%, Take Solutions at Rs 23.50 up 16.92% and Hatsun Agro at Rs 56 up 16.79%.

However, top losers on the Sensex were HUL at Rs 226 down 2.12%, ACC at Rs 593.85 down 0.98%, Grasim at Rs 1,586 down 0.97%, Ranbaxy Labs at Rs 184.90 down 0.91% and Maruti Suzuki at Rs 792.20 down 0.35%.

Refinery major HPCL was trading at Rs 260.30 down 3.77% from its previous close of Rs 270.50.

On the next page - See how Indian markets performed in the last couple of hours