Nifty closes above 4500; realty, auto, IT, oil & gas gain

The Nifty staged smart rally in the last one hour of the trade and regained all of its Thursday's loss. It closed above an important level of 4500 on the back of buying in auto, technology, realty, capital goods, oil & gas, FMCG and select banking stocks.

The markets started the day on a weak note on account of negative Asian cues but managed to recover around 11:30 hours. After 13 hours, both the indices traded in the green though there was volatility throughout the session. Positive European cues also helped the markets to rally in late trade.

At the time of closing of Indian equities, these indices were trading 1-1.6% higher while the US index futures were flat in trade. Asian markets closed mixed; Shanghai was up 1.7%; Jakarta and Kospi gained 0.2-0.3% while Nikkei and Taiwan Weighted lost 1.1-1.4%. Hang Seng and Straits Times fell 0.6% each.

Short covering in the second half of trade also helped the Sensex to recover 405.75 points and the Nifty 128 points from the day's low of 14,835.08 and 4400.90, respectively. Former Index shut shop at 15,240.83, up 228.51 points or 1.52% and later one closed 1.69% or 75.35 points higher at 4528.80. Both indices ended 1.1% lower this week.

Lokesh Nathany, Senior VP-AMC at Motilal Oswal Financial Services said the markets would be quite rangebound in the next couple of weeks. "Monsoon has been more or less factored in the market and our belief is that we should be looking at a range between 14,000 and 16,000 on the Sensex", he said.

Independent Analyst, K Ramchandran also believed that the monsoon factor or the potential failure of the monsoon has had an impact on the markets for quite sometime now. "The market has gone through a very useful correction phase but right now the market is on the threshold of probably breaking out upwards. They have found resilience at lower levels. So it is getting ready for an up move over the next few sessions."