Market breadth is also undecided, 358 shares advanced while 403 shares declined. Midcap and small cap stocks were trading flat.
At 9:56 am, the Sensex was up 40 points at 16792 and the Nifty up 7 points at 4965.
Losers were ACC, Ambuja Cements, BHEL, HDFC Bank, SBI, ITC, JP Associates, L&T, ONGC while gainers - Bharti, DLF, Grasim, Hindalco, HDFC, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Satyam and Tata Motors.
MphasiS rose 4% in early trade as HP agreed to buy EDS for $ 13.90 billion and that deal to be completed in second half of 2008. EDS holds 60.9% in Indian firm MphasiS.
Asian markets were trading mixed. Shanghai Composite was up 1.78% or 63.41 points at 3,623.65. Jakarta Composite rose 22.35 points or 0.92% at 2,441.25. Taiwan Weighted gained 23 points or 0.26% at 9,012.53.
However, Hang Seng was down 1.54% or 392.52 points at 25,160.25. Nikkei 225 Average lost 2.23 points or 0.02% at 13,951.50. Straits Times fell 14.12 points or 0.44% at 3,189.30. Seoul Composite was down 9.33 points or 0.51% at 1,833.47.
US markets closed mixed as investors juggled a mixed bag of news. A tepid outlook from Yahoo, HP's bid for EDS and a surprising resilience in retail sales led to mixed reactions. The Dow Jones ended 44 points lower at 12832, the Nasdaq however shut shop at 2495, up 7 points.