The 30-share bellwether index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, Sensex belled the day with a positive start tracking firm cues from the global markets.

Among the Asian stocks, most of the markets edge higher on reports that Cyprus will get the first tranche of € 10 billion international bailout in early May. Back home, all the sectoral indices were trading in green, barring IT stocks, led by banks, consumer durables, metals, oil & gas and PSUs.

At 9:20AM, BSE SENSEX was at 18890.94, up by 155.34 points or by 0.83 per cent and the NSE’s wide-based Nifty was at 5651.35, down by 7.4 points or by 0.13 per cent. The BSE MIDCAP was trading at 6139.6, up by 59.81 points or by 0.98 per cent while the BSE SMLCAP was at 5827.7, up by 54.77 points or by 0.95 per cent.

The top gainers of the BSE Sensex pack were Oil And Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (Rs. 305.25,+3.18%), Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (Rs. 813.50,+2.20%), Hindalco Industries Ltd. (Rs. 91.25,+1.78%), NTPC Ltd. (Rs. 141.90,+1.68%), Tata Steel Ltd. (Rs. 327.35,+1.63%), among others.

The top losers of the BSE Sensex pack were Bajaj Auto Ltd. (Rs. 1812.25,-0.58%), Infosys Ltd. (Rs. 2847.00,-0.48%), Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Rs. 293.30,-0.31%), Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (Rs. 871.95,-0.21%), among others.

The Market breadth, indicating the overall strength of the market, was weak. On BSE, out of total 1221 shares traded, 808 shares advanced, 368 shares declined and 45 were unchanged.

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.