Mumbai, Oct 19 (IANS) Mid-size and small scrips were attracting more buyers than their heavyweight peers at the Indian equities markets in noon trade Tuesday.
The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 20,298.55 points, was ruling flat at 20,174.82 points, up 5.93 points from its previous close at 20,168.89 points.
It had moved up about 164 points to 20,332 points soon after the opening bell, but soon slipped to trade in a very tight range.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 6,078.25 points, up 0.04 percent.
Broader markets were, however, doing much better. The BSE midcap index was ruling 1.27 percent higher and the BSE smallcap index 1.05 percent up.
Healthcare, auto and energy stocks led the gainers, while IT and telecom scrips were among the major losers.
Top Sensex losers at this time were ACC, L&T, ITC, HDFC and Bharti Airtel.
Among gainers were Cipla, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, and ACC.
Other Asian markets were in the green as sentiments improved on the back of strong US corporate earnings results and a rally at Wall Street overnight.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was ruling 0.75 percent higher at 23,645.12 points, while the Japanese Nikkei closed 0.43 percent up at 9,539.45 points.
The Shanghai Composite index was trading at 2,984.8 points, up one percent.
