Sensex closes 165 points up on global cues; IT up 2 per cent

The benchmark Nifty closed the first session of the year 2010-11 on a strong note led by global cues and a bit of short covering, after two days of selling. Technology, metal, capital goods, banking & financial and realty stocks along with heavyweight Reliance Industries and Tata Motors witnessed buying interest and even helped the Nifty to move near 5300 mark; it faced some resistance at that level.

Sudeep Bandyopadhyay of Spice Group said the market was still moving with the band with 5,300 at the top. "We will require a definite event to help the market breakout of that. It can come by way of the quarterly results or annual results and the second thing is the indication of the monsoons," he has said.

However, selling in Bharti Airtel, ONGC, HUL, Maruti, M&M, Tata Power, Idea Cellular, Ambuja Cements, BPCL, Power Grid and Siemens capped the gains to some extent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,692.62, up 164.85 points or 0.94% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 0.79% or 41.40 points to settle at 5,290.50. The Nifty April future closed with 14.5 points premium, as per provisional data.

Global markets remained supportive to the markets throughout the session. Asian markets closed 1-2% higher. European markets were trading 0.7-1.1% higher and Dow Futures gained 0.45%, at the time of closing of Indian equities.

Technology stocks witnessed huge buying interest on the back of short covering. These stocks had fallen in last two days on rupee appreciation. TCS was the top gainer on the Nifty; rallied 3.5%. Infosys and TCS gained 2% each. The BSE IT Index rose over 2%.