Sensex lacklustre; RIL, Renuka, ICICI Bank most active

ALSO READ See Key Market Stats - Top Gainers/ Losers, Most Actives, Highs/Lows See how Global Markets are trading Indian ADRs Nifty BSE | NSE 30/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

Sensex northbound; NTPC, Infy, HDFC Bank, HUL underperform

At 10:31 hours IST - the 30-share BSE Sensex was trading higher on the back of buying interest in oil & gas exploration, metal, realty, auto, select banking and telecom stocks. Reliance Industries continued to be the leading player for holding the the markets in green, was up over 1%. Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Cairn, SBI, Sterlite and Hindalco were other leading players.

However, selling in stocks like Infosys, NTPC, HUL, HDFC Bank, L&T, HDFC, Jindal Steel, ABB, Idea, Reliance Infrastructure, BPCL and Jaiprakash Associates limited the gains to major extent.

The Sensex was trading at 17222, up 54 points and the Nifty was at 5152, up 19 points.

Anu Jain, VP at IIFL Private Wealth Management said, "We could be in this zone of 5,100 or rather 5,050 to 5,180 as a big zone."

The market breadth was positive; about 1557 shares advanced while 1293 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 336 shares were unchanged.

Hindalco (in a block deal, 1.5 crore shares of company changed hands on NSE at Rs 162.50/sh), Man Infra, Wipro, Jubilant Foodworks, Core Projects, Reliance Industries, Fortis Health and Info Edge were the most active shares on the bourses.

In the midcap space, Usha Martin, Monnet Ispat, Fortis Health, State Bank Mysore and Gillette India were up 2.7-5% while HSBC Invest, Asian Star, Shree Renuka, REI Six Ten and EID Parry fell 2.5-6%.

In the smallcap space, Sunil Hitech Engg, Shirpur Gold, Phillips Carbon, Sanghi Ind and Visa Steel gained 4.5-8% while Take Solutions, Prraneta Ind, Maharashtra Polybutenes, OCL Iron and Gee Kay Finance declined 5-6%.

Nifty tests 5150; Bharti, ICICI Bank, SAIL, Wipro gain

The benchmark Nifty started the day on a flat to positive note and remained in a consolidation phase due to lack of global cues. It has touched the 5150 levels in early trade. Technology, auto, metal, realty, select banking and capital goods stocks were gainers.

At 9:02 hours IST, the Nifty was trading at 5157, up 24 points and the Sensex was at 17240, up 74 points. The CNX Midcap rose 33 points to 7544 and BSE Smallcap went up 42 points to 8512. The market breadth was positive; about 526 shares advanced while 119 shares declined on the NSE.

Among the frontliners, Unitech, Hindalco, IDFC, L&T, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Wipro, Reliance Communications, Bharti, ACC and ONGC were seeing buying interest.

However, Idea Cellular, HUL, Sun Pharma and ABB declined.

Midcap & Smallcap Space:

Fortis Healthcare shot up 3% as the company bought Parkway (Asia's largest chain) for USD 686 million.

IL&FS Investment Managers gained 1%.

Bank of Rajasthan rose 6%, as the bank received approval for Rs 250 crore QIP.

Usha Martin gained 9%. NMDC was up just 0.6%; its follow-on public offer subscribed 80% till now.

Chemplast rose 10% and Meghmani Organics was up 5%.

Recently listed Texmo Pipes was down 1% and Man Infra down 2%

Global cues:

Asian markets quiet in trade. Nikkei rose 0.4% while others were flat.

The US markets ended flat for fourth day running, however gained marginally ninth out of ten sessions.  The S&P closed at 17-month high above 1,150; it was up 5 points at 1150.2.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 44.5 points at 10612 and NASDAQ up 10 points at 2399.

Commodities:

Crude oil futures ended flat at USD 82.11 a barrel.

April gold futures ended flat at USD 1108.2/ounce, hit a low of USD 1110.5.

May silver futures rose 0.8% at USD 17.16/ounce.

May copper futures went up 0.7%.

Baltic Dry Index was up 2.6% at 3316.

Market cues:

IIP data is going to release today.

FIIs were net buyers of USD 92.1 million in equities on March 10.

NSE F&O Open Interest was up by Rs 2,522 crore at Rs 1,17,361 crore.

As per provisional dat of March 11, FIIs were net buyers of Rs 305 crore and DIIs were net sellers of Rs 203 crore in cash markets. FIIs were net buyers of Rs 970 crore in F&O.

F&O cues:

-Futures Open Int down Rs 77 crore, Options Open Int up Rs 2599 crore
-Nifty futures shed 9 lakh shares in Open Int, at 14-point premium
-Nifty Open Int PCR surges to 1.50 versus 1.39
-Nifty Puts add 50 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty Calls shed 4 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty 5000 Put adds 19 lakh shares in Open Int, total Open Int at 1.21 crore shares
-Nifty 5100 Put adds 13 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty 5300 Call adds 4.9 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty 5100 Call sheds 9 lakh shares in Open Int
-Stock futures ad 0.9 crore shares in Open Int