Nifty closes with modest gains; oil & gas, auto rise

The benchmark Nifty continued its upmove for fourth consecutive day and closed with marginal gains after seeing extreme volatility throughout the session. Oil & gas, auto, select capital goods, banking and metal companies' shares helped the index.

Ray Barros, CEO, Ray Barros Trading Group says, the general bias at the moment is to the upside. ''There is a direct correlation between the US markets and the Indian markets. There is no question in my mind that atleast over the next two-three weeks the US markets will be heading higher. So the bias for the Indian market will be to the upside for the next two-three weeks.''

However, Sterlite, TCS, Infosys, Suzlon, DLF, Jaiprakas Associates, Reliance Communications, HDFC Bank, Siemens, Unitech, ACC, ABB, Hindalco and Cipla were the only loser.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,944.63, up 81.57 points or 0.48% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 19.75 points or 0.39% to 5,086.30, after trading in a range of 5038.55-5097.60.

Asian and European markets were also mixed in trade today. Asian markets like Jakarta and Straits Times were up 2-3%. Kospi and Taiwan Weighted went up 1% each. However, Shanghai fell 2.4%; Hang Seng and Nikkei were flat. European markets were flat, at the time of closing of Indian equities.

Punj Lloyd and Suzlon Energy crashed on disappointing results, both slipped over 12.5% and 7.5%, respectively. Punj reported consolidated net loss at Rs 301 crore in Q4FY10 as against loss of Rs 256 crore, which impacted by additional costs in Simon Carves and ONGC. Suzlon reported Q4FY10 loss of Rs 188 crore versus profit at Rs 314 crore.