Markets trade in narrow range

Key share indices were trading flat in early morning trades with the Sensex and the Nifty swinging between negative and positive zone. At 9:35 hrs, the Sensex was up 23 points at 18,101 and the Nifty gained 7 points at 5,490 levels.

On the global front, Wall Street stocks rose on Thursday after data showed the US labour market remained on the mend, but the market stalled as it approached highs not seen since before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.4% to 12,984.69. The S&P 500 Index rose 0.4% to 1,363.46.

Asian shares rose on Friday as solid US data improved sentiment, but the upside may be capped by concerns that rising oil prices could deal a further blow to the fragile euro zone economy and moves to take profits after recent gains. Nikkei, Taiwan, Kospi and Shanghai Composite are trading marginally higher whereas Strait Times and Hang Seng are slightly weak.

Back home, technical analysts suggest that the markets are likely to correct going ahead and the best trading strategy would be to sell on rise. For the Nifty, the near-term support is pegged at 5,410 and 5,310 levels.

On the sectoral front, Consumer Durable, Metal and Realty segments have surged between 2-3%. All the major BSE sectoral indices are trading in green zone.

Sterlite is the top Sensex gainer, up 3%. Hindalco, Jindal Steel and Tata Steel have gained between 1-2%. Tata Steel has sought shareholders' permission to increase its borrowing limit by 25 per cent to 50,000 crore rupees to part-finance several ongoing expansion activities

From the Consumer Durable space, Gitanjali Gems, Rajesh Exports, Titan Inds, TTK Prestige, Videocon Inds and VIP Inds have surged between 1-4%.

DLF from the Real Estate segment has zoomed by almost 1%.  

Telecom major Bharti Airtel has gained by nearly 2%.

Auto shares like M&M, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto and Tata Motors have gained between 1-1.4%.

IT stocks like TCS, Wipro and Infosys have spurted by almost 1% each.

The broader indices have rebounded in the opening trades with BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices up by nearly 1% each.

The market breadth in BSE remains positive with 991 advancing and 398 shares declining.