Sensex up 100 pts; Maruti, HUL, BPCL underperform

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At 14:50 hours IST, the 50-share NSE Nifty came off a bit from its day's high on the back of profit booking in heavyweights at higher levels. Maruti, HUL, Cairn, Tata Power, Unitech, BPCL, M&M, Tata Motors, Ambuja Cements, Ranbaxy Labs, Suzlon and ACC were the losers in trade.

However, buying continued in banking & financial, telecom, technology, metal, capital goods and select power stocks along with Reliance Industries and ONGC.

Volumes were very high today. The markets reported total turnover of Rs 1.03 lakh crore so far.

The Sensex was trading at 17475, up 91 points and the Nifty was at 5226, up 28 points.

The market breadth was negative; about 599 shares advanced while 667 shares declined on the NSE.

NMDC surged 9% to Rs 363, after seeing fall in last few days. The company had launched FPO last week, which got subscribed just 1.25 times. Experts feel that the issue price would be Rs 300.

ARSS Infra (recently listed), Texmo Pipes (recently listed), Hindustan Copper, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and Tata Motors were the most active shares on the bourses.

On the global front, European markets and US index futures were marginally in the green.

Top gainers on the BSE Midcap - State Trading Corporation India shot up 15.11%. HMT, Andrew Yule, Triveni Engg and GMDC went up 5-8%.

Top losers on the BSE Midcap - Bannariamman, Coromandel International, Shree Renuka, Monnet Ispat and Shriram City were down 3-4.5%.

Top gainers on the BSE Smallcap - Piramal Life surged 20%. Panyam Cements, Graviss Hospital, Dredging Corporation and Zylog Systems gained 7.5-10%.

Top losers on the BSE Smallcap - Gemini Comm, Prraneta Ind, JMD Telefilms, Rollatainers and INEOS ABS lost 5% each.