Markets volatile ahead of the Railway Budget

Markets trade choppy ahead of the Railway Budget 2011-12. The S&P CNX Nifty opened firm and touched an high of 5326 and pared most of the gains as investors turned cautious. The Nifty was up 40 points, at 5301 and the Sensex was up 80 points, at 17,706.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee will present the Railway budget in the Parliament shortly. Most of the Railway stocks were on the buzzer in the morning session; Titagarh Wagons, Texmaco and Stone India were up between 2-4%.

Banking shares also bounced back after the sell-off yesterday, the BSE Banking index was up 1.7%, ICICI Bank zoomed 3.1%, Bank of Baroda advanced 2.6% and Union Bank was up 2.2%.

BSE Metal shares were leading the losses on account of weakness in metal prices in the global markets,the BSE metal index was down 1.3%. Jindal Saw slipped 2.9%, sesa Goa fell 2.8% and Hindustan Zinc was down 2.5%.

Top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors, up 3.3%, ICICI Bank, up 2.9% and State Bank of India, up 2.8%. Top losers on the Sensex were Hindalco Industries, down 3.7%, Reliance Infrastructure, down 3.6% and Tata Power, down 2.4%.

Broader markets were trading marginally higher. Midcap and smallcap indices were up 0.1% and 0.3% each.