BSE Sensex leaps 120; realty, oil & gas lead early gainers

Moneycontrol Bureau

Equity benchmarks surged in Monday morning trade after six consecutive sessions of decline. Market experts attributed the recovery mainly to technical factors, as shares were beginning to look oversold, and also due to the firm trend in global markets. However, they are skeptical if the recovery can be sustained.
The BSE Sensex was up 121 points at 18856, and the Nifty was up 37 points at 5688.
Realty, oil & gas, and banking shares were among the notable gainers in early trade. State-owned oil marketing companies are trading firm following the hike in diesel prices over the weekend.
"India is like an uninvited guest at the global party at the moment," said Samir Arora of Helios Capital, who expects the mood to remain subdued for a while.
He says that India's fundamentals may appear good relative to some other BRIC markets, but that is not good enough to attract sustainable money flows into shares.
This is a truncated trading week, with the market closed for trading on Wednesday and Friday for Holi and Good Friday respectively.
ONGC is the top gainer among frontline shares, up around 3 percent. Other key gainers at this hour include Core Projects, GMR and United Breweries, up around 3 percent each.
Anu Jain of IIFL says a short term pullback on the Nifty is very much on the cards, but traders should be cautious once the index moves into the 5730-5780 range.
Hemant Thukral of Aditya Birla Money says the market could rise on short covering of derivative positions. He says rollover of positions has been lower than average as the cost of rollover has increased. This could prompt many short sellers to cover up their positions rather roll them forward.
On the downside, Thukral sees 5650 as a strong support for the Nifty.
Independent investment advisor SP Tulsian sees SAIL stabilising close to Rs 60, as investors will be uncomfortable at the fact that a sizeable chunk of the offer-for-sale issue has been picked up by domestic institutions.
Among state-owned oil marketing companies, Tulsian is bullish on HPCL. He is bearish on Delta Corp, and feels the stock will not be able to sustain Friday's pullback. That is a view shared by technical analyst Sudarshan Sukhani, who is recommending selling the stock short. Among oil marketing companies, Sukhani is bullish on BPCL.