Nifty choppy with positive bias; ONGC, TCS, Wipro slip

At 10:16 hours IST, the benchmark Nifty was trading off day's high on the back of selling in FMCG, oil marketing and select technology companies' shares. HDFC Bank, ONGC, Cairn, Axis Bank and Tata Motors were the other losers.

However, buying interest continued in telecom, power, metal, realty, select auto and capital goods stocks. Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and SBI were the other gainers.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 17,540, up 54 points and the Nifty was at 5,241, up 16 points. The market breadth was positive; about 1946 shares advanced while 964 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 202 shares were unchanged.

Top gainers among largecaps - Bharti Airtel was up 2.66% and Siemens up 2.8%. Reliance Communications, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, M&M and Cipla gained 1-1.8%.

Hindustan Copper, Rashtriya Chemical, Dredging Corporation, HDIL, Bharati Shipyard, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel were the most active shares on the bourses.

Top percentage gainers - Hindustan Rectifiers rose 15.55%. Mount Everest, Action Financial, Cera Sanitary, Titan Bio-Tech, PTL Enterprises, Sree Rayalaseem and Transport Corp were up 10-12%.

In the midcap space, Jai Corp, National Fertiliser, GNFC, Gujarat Industries Power and KGN Industries gained 4.5-8% while MindTree, HMT, Gujarat Flourochem, STC India and Shree Renuka fell 1.4-4%.

In the smallcap space, Gokul Refoils, Shristi Infra and ABG Shipyard went up 6.5-9% while Richa Industries, Int Conveyor, OCL Iron, JK Lakshmi Cement and Gujarat Ambuja Exports lost 2.5-5%.

On the global front, Asian markets were weak in trade. Shanghai was down 1% and Hang Seng down 1.3%. Straits Times and Taiwan were marginally in the red. However, Nikkei and Kospi were marginally in the green.