Nifty ends above 5450; financials, oil & gas exploration up

The benchmark Nifty closed positive on Friday led by financial, realty, oil & gas exploration, PSU power, select metal and auto companies' shares. More importantly SBI was leader for the second consecutive day after strong quarterly numbers. Even the Asian markets added some support to the markets.

In the last one hour of trade, the Sensex wiped out around 100 points from day's high due to profit booking at higher levels and sell-off in private power companies' shares along with Sterlite Industries, Reliance Communications, Tata Motors, M&M, Hindalco, BPCL and Ranbaxy Labs.

It was the fifth consecutive week for the markets to remain in a range of 5350-5500. It has been finding very hard to Punita Kumar Sinha, Senior Managing Director of The BlackStone Group says, the markets may remain ranged for rest of the year. ''Markets, both, local and global, are very dependent on data. So on the back of the same, the two may stay in broad range for the rest of the year. However, the range for the Indian equity markets is likely to increase,'' she said.

Jyoti Vaswani - Director, Fund Manager and CIO, Aviva India also says that though there has been a rise in the last few months the upside looks limited in the short term. She thinks that the markets will consolidate in the next six months.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 18,167.03, up 93.13 points or 0.52% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 35.65 points or 0.66% to settle at 5,452.10. For the week, both equity benchmarks ended flat.

Sensex positive; Patni, SBI, Raymond, RIL most active