BSE Sensex and Nifty meandered along the flat line in the afternoon trade after staying in the negative for most part of the early session.
However, midcap and smallcap stocks continued to outperform the frontline stocks with the BSE sub-indices rising over 1 per cent each.
At 12:20 p.m., the Nifty was up 12 points to 7,414 while Sensex rose 5 points to 24,811.24. Metal stocks were the top gainers today, extending their advances to the fifth day. The BSE metal index was up close to 2.5 per cent. Sesa jumped 5.2 per cent, Hindalco rose 2.8 per cent, while Tata Steel gained 2 per cent.
Cement stocks were also among the gainers today with reports of price hikes. Orient Cement, Shree Cements, India Cements and Heidelberg Cement rose between 10 per cent and 5 per cent. ACC and Kesoram Industries were up close to 1 per cent.
Elsewhere, other Asian share markets mostly ended flat ahead of ECB's policy meeting later in the day.
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