Indices have come off their mid-morning highs as heavyweights like ONGC and Reliance and some of the auto and aluminium stocks have given up part of their gains in early afternoon trades.

Sensex is trading higher by 297 points at 10963 at 01.10 PM.

Nifty is trading higher by 72 points at 3250.

Steel stocks are very firm in early afternoon trades as Tata Steel has built on its early gains. News of a merger proposal between Arcelor and a Russian company at very high valuations has provided a further boost to the steel stocks.

SAIL is now the biggest gainer among index stocks, trading nearly 7 per cent higher. Tata Steel has also added nearly 6.5 per cent.

Aluminium stocks have come off their early highs. Nalco is trading more than 4 per cent higher while Hindalco is up by just over 1.5 per cent. Copper maker Sterlite is holding on to its gains of over 5 per cent.

HDFC has also rallied ahead and is now trading nearly 6 per cent higher. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank have added over 1.5 per cent each while SBI is trading over 2 per cent higher.

Among the heavyweights, Reliance and ONGC have slipped from their highs. Reliance is now trading 2.5 per cent higher while ONGC is up by only 0.5 per cent.

HPCL and Gail are among the other gainers in the oil and gas sector, trading more than 4 per cent each higher.

Engineering stocks have also come off their highs. L&T is now trading with gains of close to 5 per cent.

Infosys is trading more than 4 per cent higher while Satyam has given up part of its gains and is trading only over a per cent higher. TCS and Wipro are trading with modest gains.

ITC, which is due to announce results today, is trading 3 per cent higher while HLL is also up by over 3 per cent. Tata Tea is the best performer in the FMCG sector, trading 5 per cent higher.

Bajaj Auto has surged ahead and is now trading nearly 5.5 per cent higher. Hero Honda has added over 4 per cent.

Cipla and MTNL are the other major gainers.

The number of losers on the Nifty has gone up to 5. Sun Pharma is still down by nearly 2.5 per cent.

Tata Power, Bharti, Maruti and HCL Technologies are the other losers

Mid-caps have also come off their highs marginally. The mid-cap index is now trading with gains of around 3 per cent. Market breadth on the NSE continues to be extremely positive with more than 8 stocks advancing for every declining stock.

Soma Textiles, Mahindra Ugine, Gujarat NRE Coke, IndiaBulls, Prime Securities and Karnataka Bank are among the gainers in mid-caps.

Ansal Infrastructure, DS Kulkarni and Indo-Rama Textiles are among the mid-cap losers.