Markets up marginally in mid-morning trades

Markets have managed to stay in the green in mid-morning trades on buying in auto and capital goods shares. The Sensex, after dipping ino the red to a low of 16,874, has recovered and is up 60 points at 16,997. Nifty is up 17 points at 5,108.

Analysts expect markets to remain volatile ahead of the derivatives expiry next week.

"Broadly speaking, indices are now trading range of 17300 to 16640 / 5198 to 5000. Thus, 16744 – 16640 / 5033 – 5000 levels are likely to act as a strong support in coming trading session. On the upside, the buying may emerged only if indices manage to sustain above Wednesday’s high of 17107 / 5148. In this case, indices would head towards the strong resistance zone of 17260 – 17300 / 5177 – 5198," says Angel broking in a research note.

Asian markets remained mixed with investors cautious ahead of the this weekend's crucial meetings on Europe's debt crisis. European leaders are set to discuss some measures to solve the euro-zone debt crisis in a summit on Sunday. Nikkei was down 12 points at 8,669. Shanghai Composite dropped 0.6% to 2,317. Meanwehile, Straits Times and Seoul Composite added around 1% each.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE capital goods index has gained 1.3% to 10,904. Auto index has added 1% to 8,946.

Tata Motors was up 0.8% at Rs 185. The company is planning to raise $750 million via overseas borrowing to reduce debt.

Maruti Suzuki gained 2% to Rs 1,099 after the long stand-off at its Manesar plant ended early on Friday. Bajaj Auto added 1.5%.

BHEL, Sun Pharma, TCS and jaiprakash Associates are up as well. Larsen & Toubro gained 1.3% to Rs 1,404 ahead of its quarterly numbers today. SBI was up 1.3% to Rs 1,959 after hiking home loan tenure to 30 years.

Among other stocks, Thermax gained 2% to Rs 432 after net profit rose 13.58% to Rs 101.69 crore on 22.80% rise in net sales to Rs 1286.73 crore in the Q2 September 2011.

However, selling pressure is witnessed in realty stocks. The BSE realty index has dropped 0.5% to 1,799.  DLF shed 1.7% to Rs 227 after SEBI started investigating whether an associate company of DLF duped an investor by using a maze of intermediary companies while purchasing land.

Hindalco, Tata Steel and Jindal Steel from the metal pack dipped around 1% each. NTPC and Infosys dropped 0.8% each.