Markets open up on global cues

Markets gave opened with a positive gap this morning. The Sensex opened at 19,718 - up 134 points. The index is now up 140 points at 19,726.

The Nifty is up 46 points at 5,935.

Metal stocks are in green. Financials are also up.

Ranbaxy, Cipla, Bharti Airtel are in green. However, ONGC has slipped into red.

Asian markets are trading on a mixed note this morning, following its decline last week. The previous week markets in Asia had dropped on worries of further rate hikes by China. This morning, the Shanghai Composite is down 14 points at 2,875. Hang Seng has dropped 136 points to 23,470. However, Nikkei is up 1% at 10,124.

"In order to curb inflationary pressures, China for the fifth time increased the reserve ratio requirement by 50 bps. It is largely believed that raising reserve requirement only will not do the needed and China may have to increase the interest rates", says SMC Global.

The SGX Nifty is up 49 points at 5,923.

Back home, Indian markets slumped 3% last week on continued controversy in the 2G space. Chinese rate hike fears also took the indices below the 20,000 and 6,000 mark, respectively. Food inflation fell by 2% points to a three-month low of 10.30%

The week may see volatile movements, owing to the derivatives expiry on Thursday.

"Technically the market is still in sell mode and we are now heading into an F&O expiry week and we are also very close to a strong support of 4842 and so the market is expected to be volatile but the market has a strong resistance around 6044-6100 levels", says Prakash Gaba.

BSE consumer durables has gained 2% at 6,577. Realty, metal and IT are up in more.

Bharti Airtel has gained 2.6% at 338. Jaiprakash Associates has added 2.3% to Rs 123.

Jindal Steel, Infosys and Tata Motors and Tata Steel and Wipro have advanced 1.5% each.

However, Reliance Infrastructure has dropped 1.5% to Rs 931.