Nifty ends flat with positive bias on settlement day

The benchmark Nifty closed flat with a positive bias on expiry day for the month of August 2010. The index, which has been rangebound since last month itself, when it was trading in 5350-5450 range, has now moved up to the 5450-5550 range.

Deven Choksey of KR Choksey Securities said that the markets would be in a range of somewhere around 5,430-5,400 level as a support and 5,550-5,600 as a resistance. "In this range, market would probably shift the stocks and show some amount of upside, or the fall in this particular range, we will see in month of September," he added.

Jitendra Panda, Senior VP Business Associates Group, Motilal Oswal Securities said the banking sector is expected to see continued enthusiasm in the September series as well in view of the impending festive season. "So maybe the banking sector will still be the key sector to follow and hold on to for long positions. I believe the real estate and IT will play a major role in the September series.''

Auto, PSU power, PSU oil & gas, capital goods and select financial companies' shares along with ITC, Bharti, DLF, TCS, JSPL, Tata Steel and Tata Power helped the markets to remain in positive terrain. Even positive European cues and US index futures were quite supportive.

However, Reliance Industries, Reliance Communications, Sterlite Industries, HDFC Bank, HUL, Infosys, Reliance Infrastructure, Suzlon along with healthcare companies' shares witnessed selling pressure, which capped the gains to major extent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 18,226.35, up 46.71 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 15.55 points to 5,477.90, after witnessing a range of 5455-5485 on expiry day. Both benchmarks gained 1.3% in August series.