After touching the day's low, the markets have moved higher but continues to trade range bound. There is no encouraging news from the global markets either.

The Asian indices though in the positive have pared its initial gains.

The Hang Seng is flat at 20,744 and the  Nikkei is up 158 points or 1.7% at 9,149. The Sensex is at 18032, gaining 34 points and the Nifty is up 7 points at 5,415.

The smallcap and the midcap index too look stable at 0.9% and 0.8% respectively.

The sectoral indices on the BSE remain unchanged. Metal gaining nearly 2% is the top gainer on the chart followed by Realty and Consumr Durables.

Auto remains stable at 0.9%. FMCG after a marginal recovery once again slipped into the negative, down 0.1%. IT has pared some of its losses but is 0.8% down along with Teck. ITC down nearly 1%, Hindustan Unilever shedding 0.4% and Ruchi Soya losing 0.1% are the draggers in the FMCG space.

D B Realty and Unitech up 2% each, HDIL and Indiabulls Real Estate gaining 1.4% are the major movers in this space.

Tata Steel up 3% continue to lead the Sensex gainers list followed by Bharti Airtel, ONGC,Reliance Infrastructure and Hindalco adding 2% each.

On the losers list are TCS and Infosys down 1%. ITC, Hindustan Unilever,  HDFC Bank and Wipro are the other major losers.

The market breadth is positive. 1817 stocks have advnaced whike 973 have declined.