Trades Steady; Berger Paints Spurts Up

After witnessing a gap-up opening, the Indian markets are trading in a narrow range. The Nifty is trading flat with a positive bias, up by 7 points at 6031. Sensex is up by 17 points at 19,922.21. Both indices are higher in the range of 0.08%-0.13%.

The advance-decline ratio is healthy in the afternoon trading session. On the NSE, 753 shares are in positives and 633 shares are trading in the red.

Top 5 NSE Gainers: Ambuja Cements is the top performer at this hour, with gains of 3.60%. Other gainers include Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, ACC and Bharat Petroleum.

Top 5 NSE Losers: Hero MotoCorp is among the top losers, trading lower by 1.55%, followed by Sesa Goa, Jindal Steel and Power, Hindustan Unilever and Asian Paints.

8 of the 13 sectoral indices are trading in firm so far. Realty and Auto are the top performing sectors, gaining by 0.56%-0.75%. Metal and Oil & Gas are witnessing some profit booking. These sectors are lower between 0.16%-0.40%.

In the peer Asian markets, Nikkei 225 is up by 0.71%, followed by Shanghai Composite which has gained 0.60%. KOSPI is trading down by 1.17%, Taiwan Weighted is down by 0.76% and Hang Seng has lost 0.24%.

Buzzers: Berger Paints India is trading up by 9.96% at Rs 165. The stock has touched a new 52-week high. It has witnessed a jump of more than 1000% in today’s trade volumes as compared to its 5-days’ average volumes.

MCX has surged up by 4% and is now trading at Rs 1417. The stock has underperformed the index in the last month or so. Today, it has seen an up-move along with a jump in volumes.

Going ahead, Nifty has support at 6020 and 5970. As long as it holds these levels, every dip will present a buying opportunity.