Nifty stays above 4900 with 1% gain; ITC, DLF top buy list

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty stayed 1% higher in morning trade led by short covering in most beaten down stocks. Banks, metals, auto and FMCG stocks saw buying interest today. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries gained 1%.

The BSE benchmark rose 178.78 points or 1.12% to 16,208.87, supported by 27 components. Meanwhile, the NSE benchmark moved up 53.8 points or 1.11% to 4,912.05.

Amit Gupta, head- derivatives of ICICI Direct said, "For intraday traders, 4,950 is going to be critical immediately. A close above that possibly may give you an indication that finally we are going to hit 5,050,” he adds.

FMCG majors ITC and HUL gained nearly 3% and over 1%, respectively. Realty major DLF rallied 3%.

Country's largest lenders State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were up 1.5-2%. Housing finance company HDFC rose 1.6%.

Top telecom operator Bharti Airtel moved up over 1% and state-owned capital goods major BHEL went up 1.5%.

However, shares of BPCL slipped 1.4% on profit booking. HCL Tech, ACC, Grasim, Dr Reddy's Labs, TCS, L&T and Infosys were marginally lower.

Asian markets too gained on Thursday after taking a beating yesterday, but the situation has not changed in Europe and the problems in Greece still persist. Yesterday agencies reported that European Central Bank has suspended operations with some Greek banks. The central bank said Greek banks were moved to Emergency Liquidity Assistance, so normal operations would resume once these banks got capitalized.