Nifty gains 2nd day ahead of F&O expiry

Nifty benchmark ended marginally higher by 18 points in a yet another choppy trade ahead of expiry of August futures & options contracts tomorrow.
Volatility continued for the third consecutive session as fresh buying were seen in energy, pharma, media, IT and infra stocks while mild selling were seen in metal and PSU banks sectors.
Market participants were also bit jittery ahead of the Fed chair Janet Yellen speech at the Jackson Hole in US later this week.
Overseas stock markets, bank stocks aided gains in European equities. In Germany, the latest data showed that the German economy slowed in the second quarter, as investment dropped after a strong start to the year.

Asian stocks witnessed a mixed trend ahead of Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen's speech later this week, which could provide hints about the timing of the next rate hike from the Fed. US stocks registered small gains yesterday, after upbeat data on US new-home sales.
The 50-share Nifty opened slightly higher at 8,648.50 and hovered between 8,661.05 and 8,620.90 before ending at 8,650.30, showing a rise of 17.70 points or 0.21 per cent.

It witnessed an intra-day movement of about 40.15 pts.
On the sectoral front, energy climbed by 1.15 pct, followed by pharma (1.12 pct), media (1.03 pct), finance service (0.27 pct), realty (0.26 pct) and infra (0.22 pct).

However, Nifty PSU banks eased by 0.12 per cent, metal eased by 0.07 pct and pvt bank 0.05 per cent.
Notable Index gainers were, Auropharma by 6.95 pct, Tata Power 2.21 pct, Maruti by 2.37 pct, Cipla 2.08 pct and Infosys 1.71 pct.
While, notable laggards were Idea 2.62 pct, Lupin 2.20 pct, Ambuja Cem 1.44 pct, Tata MtrDvr 1.52 pct and Tata Steel 1.35 per cent.
A total of 948 scrips rose, 651 declined, while 76 were unchanged. Total securities that have hit their price band were 110.
Turnover in cash segment rose to Rs 18,386.37 crore from Rs 18,165.34 crore as on Tuesday.

A total of 8,906.32 lakh shares changed hands in 73,58,652 trades. The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 107,71,151.10 crore.