The benchmark indices have recouped all their losses and have actually made some headway into the positive territory. The Sensex had retraced around 100 points from the lows of the day and is now quoting at 17971, higher by 14 points and the Nifty is at 5400, up three points. The markets had already recovered on the back of a dip in the inflation numbers. Food inflation fell to single digits for the first time this year, declining by 2.80 percentage points to 9.67% for the week ended July 17 from 12.47% in the previous week, due to a drop in the prices of potatoes and onions.

And a healthy start to the European markets, with the FTSE, CAC and DAX, gaining about half a percent in early trades, has taken the markets further. The leading gainers on the Sensex are HDFC (strengthened by 2.7% at Rs 2975), Hindustan Unilever (gained 2.2% at Rs 258) and Hero Honda (added 0.8% at Rs 1871). ICICI Bank, Maruti and BHEL are the other significant gainers. The laggards include Bharti Airtel (weakened by 1% at Rs 317), DLF (shed 0.9% at Rs 308) and SBI (lost 0.9% at Rs 2448). And RIL has slif further by 0.5% at Rs 1014). The market breadth is positive. Out of 2844 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1442 advancing stocks as against 1292 declines.

Courtesy & From :business-standard