Sensex closes with modest gains; oil & gas, IT, cement rise

The Sensex saw consolidation for the second consecutive day. It traded in the red for major part of the session. Shares of oil & gas, cement and technology companies supported the markets. ICICI Bank, Reliance Infrastructure, Tata Power, Sterlite, Sun Pharma and Tata Motors were the other gainers, which helped the Sensex to close with modest gains.

However, selling continued in capital goods, realty, metal, FMCG, banking, select telecom and auto stocks, which capped the gains. Around 1.2-1.8% fall in Asian markets also weighed on the markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 15,903.83, up 0.46% or 72.85 points, after seeing an intraday high of 15,973.10 and low of 15,695.11. The 50-share NSE Nifty touched a day's high/low of 4717.20 and 4629.85, before closing 13.65 points or 0.29% higher, at 4,694.15.

Sudarshan Sukhani of Technical Trends said the market was just consolidating because the small nervousness that the markets saw was dissipated so quickly – more than 4,600 was giving support yesterday and today. "Before it goes for the next breakout it might spend time here", he added.

Satish Betadpur, Global Research Director of Independent International Investment Research said, "There maybe temporary pauses like we are having currently but we have a strong upturn in most major markets around the world. It is driven by improvements in most major economies; as we have seen in the US, the housing data was better-than-expected, Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was better-than-expected. So, overall while the markets have run up and that may cause for some mid-term or short-term pauses, the long-term fundamentals will drive the market up."

The BSE Oil & Gas and IT indices outperformed other indices, rose 1.95% each. However, Realty Index was down 1.9%. Auto and FMCG indices fell 1% each.