Markets turn choppy as Eco Survey begins; Banks spike up

Particpants are keeping a watch on the Economic Survey 2016 due to be tabled at 12 noon today

Markets are trading in a narrow range with positive bias on the first day of March F&O series. Further, particpants are keeping a watch on the Economic Survey 2016 that has been tabled in Parliament today..

At 12: 20 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 66 points at 23,042 and the Nifty50 was up 22 points at 6,992.

In the currency front, the rupee recovered 7 paise to 68.65 against the US dollar today at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market on selling of the US currency by exporters and banks amid a higher opening in the domestic equity market.  

Among overseas markets, Asian shares made guarded gains on Friday as a gathering of world finance leaders provided a welter of reassuring comments, but little in the way of actual policy stimulus.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.7%, while South Korea rose 0.3%. Japan's Nikkei gained 1.2% but could not quite sustain a two-week top.

Back home, Nifty Bank is trading at day's high with SBI and AxisBank leading the charts with a gain of 3% each. Other promient gainers from the Sensex pack are Coal India, L&T and Tata Motors, all up between 2%-3%.

On the losing side, Hero Moto, Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel and Maruti Suzuki are down 1%-3%.

Shares of four out of seven companies those are included in the futures and options (F&O) segment with effect from today, are trading higher on the bourses.

United Spirits (Rs 2,751) and KPIT Technologies (Rs 132) are up 4% each, Tata Elxsi (Rs 1,782) and Cummins India (Rs 843) are up less than 1% each on the NSE.

PC Jeweller has dipped 8% to 343, while Indo Count Industries is down 4% at Rs 815 and Granules India is up by 1% at Rs 108.

Shares of wagon-makers like Titagarh Wagons, Texmaco Rail & Engineering and Kalindee Rail Nirman (Engineers) have slumped more than 10%, extending their previous day’s losses after the Rail Budget fell short of industry expectations.