Benchmarks were seeing a relief rally after a spiky correction as investors purchased scrips across the board at attractive levels.

Banking, automobile and capital goods headed the sectoral gainers pack whereas metals and FMCG sectors remained inhibited.

At 12 p. m.; the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex stood at 18404.45, up 193.87 points after hitting an intraday high of 18480.93 and an intraday low of 18281.50.

National Stock Exchange's Nifty remained at 5519.65 after surging 59.80 points. It hit an intraday peak of 5535.50 and an intraday low of 5477.55.

According to Angel Broking, "The trend deciding level for the day is 18,313/5,488 levels. If Nifty trades above this level during the first half-an-hour of trade then we may witness a further rally up to 18,466-18,722/5,532-5,605 levels. However, if Nifty trades below 18,313/5,488 levels for the first half-an-hour of trade then it may correct up to 18,058-17,905/5,416-5,371 levels."

BSE Midcap Index remained up by 0.56% and the BSE Smallcap Index surged 0.76%.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex remained on top with a gain of 2.39%, followed by BSE Auto Index, which zoomed 2.15% and the BSE Capital Goods Index climbed 1.49%.

The BSE FMCG Index remained down by 0.45% and BSE Metal Index slipped 0.16%.

The major gainers list comprised ICICI Bank, M&M, Tata Motors, BHEL and DLF.

Rel Infra, Bharti Airtel, Sterlite Ind, RCom and ITC were the top losers.