Nifty ends with moderate gains; financials, IT rise

Equity benchmarks closed with moderate gains after showing a smart recovery in the last couple of hours of trade on Thursday. Technology, financial and select power companies' shares led the recovery and pulled the Nifty up above the 5700 mark as well as the Sensex above the 19000 level. Indices had slipped close to 1% in the first half of trade today due to weak global cues.

Cabinet reshuffle and mobile number portability rollout did not have much impact on markets. Overall, indices were extremely volatile in trade. Naresh Kothari president of Edelweiss Capital expects this trend to continue in the first half of this calendar year.

Deven Choksey of KR Choksey Securities feels that the Nifty is likely to be in a range between 5700-5900 as earnings are largely inline with estimates. "Traders need to be cautious," he said.

However, the sell-off in oil & gas and select metal companies' shares along with ITC, Bharti, Bajaj Auto, Maruti and BHEL capped gains in late trade.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 19,046.54, up 68.22 points or 0.36% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 20.55 points or 0.36% to settle at 5,711.60. Broader indices were quiet in trade today.

With a more pessimistic view, Daryl Guppy of guppytraders.com said both Nifty and Sensex were hitting further downside targets in the short term. This is the key problem, he feels. According to him, the downside target for Sensex is at 17500 and for the Nifty at 5200.