Nifty ends 120 points higher on expiry day; RIL, ICICI Bk lead

The markets ended the last day of the April futures and options series higher. The benchmark Nifty closed above the 5250 mark. It bounced back today after Wednesday's sell-off due to Eurozone jitters and remained positive throughout the session on the back of short covering. The index strengthened a bit further in the late trade, especially following European cues.

European markets were trading 0.5% higher after two-day sell-off, at the time of closing of Indian equities. However, Asian markets closed mixed; Shanghai and Hang Seng fell 0.8-1.1%. Kospi and Taiwan declined 0.3% each. However, Jakarta and Straits Times gained 0.8% each.

Banking & financial, metal, auto, oil & gas exploration and capital goods companies' shares witnessed buying interest.  However, FMCG and PSU power companies' shares along with TCS, Sun Pharma, TCS, Idea, BPCL, Hero Honda, Kotak Mahindra, ABB, Siemens, ACC and Cipla were on the sellers' radar.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,503.47, up 123.39 points or 0.71% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 38.70 points or 0.74% to settle at 5,254.15. Both the indices ended flat in April series. The Nifty May futures closed at 7 points discount, as per provisional data.

Jitendra Panda, Senior VP Business Associates group at Motilal Oswal said, "The positions which are coming on the Call and the Put, we clearly see that there could be some corrections in the May series and before really the monsoon trigger starts in."

Reliance Industries, Cairn and ONGC from the oil & gas space gained 1.75%, 2.2% and 0.65%, respectively. However, BPCL was down 2.7% and GAIL was down 1.26%.