At 12:08 hours IST, the Nifty remained positive and was hovering around the 4,800 mark. Continuous buying was seen in banking & financial, realty, metal, oil & gas, auto, power and pharma stocks. The broader indices maintained their 2% gain, as NSE's advance:decline ratio stood at 7:1. However, selling in HUL, BHEL, Idea Cellular, ITC, Tata Power and Ambuja Cements limited the gains to some extent.

The Sensex rose 164 points to 16,227 and the Nifty gained 51 points at 4,817. The Nifty November future was trading with 6 points discount.

Sunil Hitech was locked at 10% upper circuit, as according to sources, Indiabulls Power is in talks to buy stake in the company. Indiabulls Power may buy controlling share in Sunil Hitech. Indiabulls Power surged 10%.

All the sectoral indices were in the green barring FMCG; the BSE Realty, Metal and Bank indices gained 2-2.8%. Auto, Capital Goods, Power, Oil & Gas and Healthcare indices were up 1-1.7%. However, FMCG index fell 0.3%.

In the banking space, PNB, Bank of Baroda, SBI and Axis Bank were up 1.8-3%. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank gained 0.4-0.65%.

Metal stocks like Tata Steel, Sterlite Industries, SAIL, NALCO and Jindal Saw moved up 1.8-2.5%. Hindalco rose 0.40%.

HPCL, IOC, BPCL, Reliance Industries, Cairn India and ONGC went up 0.2-1%, in the oil & gas space.

In the realty pack, DLF, Unitech and Indiabulls Real were up 1.5-2.5%.

Power stocks like Torrent Power, Suzlon Energy, NHPC, Neyveli Lignite, Adani Power, Siemens, Reliance Infrastructure, GMR Infra and GVK Power gained 1-6%. Reliance Power and Power Grid Corp went up 0.5-0.7%.

Top percentage gainers - MMTC, Indo Borax, Sirpur Paper, Madhucon Projects, STC India, Rashtriya Chemical and National Fertilisers moved up 12-14.5%.

Top percentage losers - Madhusudan Sec, Terai Tea, Arvind Chemical, Sarda Plywood, Sharyans Res, Alkyl Amines, Centum Electron, Rajvir Ind and GKW fell 4.5-9%.

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