Sensex, Nifty choppy; ONGC, GAIL, HPCL surge

Indian equity benchmarks remained in a tight range since morning trade as banks, telecom and PSU oil & gas stocks were supporting the market whereas FMCG, technology stocks and Reliance Industries were under pressure.

The BSE benchmark rose 27.22 points to 17,426.20 and the NSE benchmark went up 9 points to 5,287.50.

Shares of oil marketing companies rallied quite sharply due to buying interest. HPCL shot up 5% and IOC gained 3.7% while BPCL rose 1.7%. Even state-owned oil & gas producer ONGC and gas transportation services provider GAIL were up 1.5% and 1.8%, respectively.

Housing finance company HDFC surged 2% and country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank was up over 1% while its rivals State Bank of India and HDFC Bank were up 0.4%.

Top telecom operator Bharti Airtel topped the buying list, rising 3% ahead of cabinet meeting for spectrum pricing on Tuesday. Engineering and construction major by sales Larsen & Toubro rose 0.46% whereas state-owned power equipment manufacturer BHEL tanked 1.7%.

However, FMCG majors ITC and HUL went down over 1%.

Software services exporter TCS fell 1.6% as the Indian rupee appreciated by 63 paise to 54.80 against the US dollar.

Infosys and Reliance Industries were marginally lower.