Nifty choppy; ONGC, Bharti, TCS, RCom dip

The benchmark Nifty was quiet in opening trade and was hovering just around its previous closing value, after a sharp cut seen in last few sessions. Oil & gas, telecom, metal, realty and technology stocks were putting pressure on markets. Global cues too quiet.

Among frontliners, Cairn India, Reliance Infrastructure, Tata Motors (ahead of numbers), Reliance Capital, Power Grid, TCS, L&T, SBI, Jaiprakash Associates, Reliance Industries, SAIL, HDFC and ICICI Bank were on buyers' radar in early trade.

Cairn rose 3% as its Q3 consolidated net profit was up at Rs 2,010 crore versus Rs 291 crore, year-on-year basis.

Power Grid jumped 2% as MSCI added the stock into its India Index with weightage of 0.88%.

However, Suzlon Energy, GAIL, Reliance Communications, Idea, Ambuja Cements, Bharti Airtel, DLF, Wipro, HCL Tech and ONGC were limiting the gains.

Suzlon Energy tumbled 4% as NSE will remove from the Nifty on March 25.

Midcap & Smallcap space:

Allied Digital shot up 5% for the first time in last five sessions on the back of buyback news.

Lanco, Jain Irrigation and Nagarjuna Construction were up 2-3%.

Gujarat State Petronet was up 3%.

Recently listed - Omkar Speciality was down by 15% at Rs 39 while the issue price was Rs 98 a share.

Moser Baer tanked 7% as it has reported a net loss of Rs 115.7 crore for the quarter ended December 2010 as against profit of Rs 3.2 crore in same quarter the previous year.

Parsvnath lost 7% and DB Realty was down 4%.

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Asian markets were flat in trade.

The US markets recovered amid disappointing results, good economic data and consistent worries in Egypt.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he would delegate powers to the vice president, though he stopped short of resigning.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 11 points at 12,229, after seeing recovery of 73 points from day's low of 12,156.

Commodities

CRB Commodity Index rose 0.2%.

Crude oil ended flat at USD 86.73/barrel, after hitting a session high of USD 87.90/barrel

Natural gas was down 1.7% at USD 3.98 per MMBtu

Gold lost 0.2% at USD 1362.5/ounce

Silver declined 0.6% at USD 30.09/ounce

Baltic Dry Index was up 4%

F&O cues:

Total Nifty futures up Rs 63 crore, Options up Rs 2313 crore

Stock futures net add 13 lakh shares in Open Int

Nifty Fut Open Int add 75 k shares in Open Int; Nifty futures premium at 4 pts versus prem of 26 pts

Nifty Open Int PCR down at 1 versus 1.07

Nifty Put shed 4.9 lakh shares, Call add 45.2 lakh shares in Open Int

Highest Open Int outstanding at 5100 Put (from 5400 Call), 5400 call (from 5400 Put)

Nifty 5200 Call adds 17.3 lakh shares (144%) in Open Int; prem down from 130 to 103

Nifty 5300 Call add 16.9 lakh shares (38%) in Open Int, prem down from 68 to 56.6

Nifty 5100 Put add 4.9 lakh shares (8%) in Open Int, prem up from 42.8 to 44

Nifty 5600 Call add 4.2 lakh shares (8%) in Open Int, prem down from 8 to 6.5

Nifty 4800 Put add 2.2 lakh shares (30%) in Open Int

Nifty 4900 Put add 2.06 lakh shares (18%) in Open Int

Nifty 5300 Put shed 7 lakh shares (12%) in Open Int

Nifty 5400 Put shed 3.6 lakh shares (6%) in Open Int