Markets pare gains

Markets pared marginal gains in the morning session following a firm opening due to weakness in oil & gas shares. The Nifty was up 17 points, at 5843 and the Sensex gained 62 points, at 19,482. The BSE benchmark index had touched a high of 19,566.

Markets in Asia moved higher after US Labour Department report that unemployment fell 8.8%, lowest level since March 2009 lifting the Wall Street higher. The Dow Jones industrial average scaled to 2011 high and retreated to 12,377, up 0.5%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index surged 0.5% and The Nasdaq composite advanced 0.3%.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.7%, at 9,778 led by gains in exporter shares on back of weakening Yen. Hong Kong's Heng Seng index added 1.2% buttressed by gains in financials and property developers. China's Shanghai Composite was also 1.3%. However, South Korea's Kospi Composite bucked trend and was down 0.3%.

While the markets have edged higher in the morning session, technical charts indicate consolidation after the markets recorded their sharpest rally in 21 months in past nine sessions. Edelsweiss Research in the morning note said, "the breakout above 5600 has resulted in an unrelenting and strong up move that has managed to clear all near-term resistances with ease. However one should be cautious of imminent selling around 5900-5940 which could drag Nifty down to 5700. On a break and close above the resistance, the index has the legs to stretch the gains up to 6100 (78.6% retracement of the November-February decline).”

Among individual shares Reliance Communication dipped 2.5%, Unitech slipped 1.4% and DB Realty was off 3.4% after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged the telecom firms in the 2G allocation scam on Saturday.

BSE IT shares were leading the gains; the index was up 1.6%. Wipro advanced 1.9%, Infosys gained 1.8% and Mphasis was up 1.7%. BSE Oil & Gas index was a laggard in trade. Oil Marketing Companies were leading the losses after Brent crude surged to $119/bbl. BPCL fell 0.8%, Indian Oil Corporation fell 0.7% and HPCL was off 0.2%.

The broader markets were trading firm, the midcap and small cap indices were up 0.4% and 0.7% each. Top gainers on the Sensex were Hero Honda, up 1.8%, Infosys advanced 1.7% and State Bank of India gained 1.1%. The top losers were Reliance Infrastructure, down 1.1%, Maruti Suzuki declined 1% and Hindustan Unilever fell 0.8%.

Market breadth was positive, 1390 stocks advanced for 412 stocks which declined.