Nifty holds strongly above 5500

After breaking the strong resistance of 5500, the Nifty has decisively held the 5500 mark and is currently trading at 5532, up 50 points, and Sensex is trading at 18,438, up 131 points.

Ashish Chaturmohta, AVP, Anand Rathi says that Nifty has crossed crucial resistance level of 5480 with strong volumes and good open interest buildup in the index heavyweights. This suggests that Nifty could touch 5580-5600 levels soon.

Frontline stocks are pulling the markets higher; ICICI Bank is up 3.1% at Rs 1000, ACC and HDFC Bank have surged over 2.5% at Rs 863 and Rs 638 respectively.

Other prominent gainers are JP Associates, up 2.1%, Reliance Infra, ITC and Reliance Industries have surged over 1.5%.

Reliance Industries is currently trading at Rs 981. 'Reliance is the only frontine counter which has underperformed in the current rally,' says Ashish Chaturmohta. Open interest has gone up by more than 50% from the beginning of this month with shorts domination; any move above 1010 level would see lot of short covering adds Chaturmohta.

Only 7 stocks are trading in the red on the Sensex; ONGC, Tata Motors & SBI are top losers, down over 0.5%.

Among the sectoral pack, FMCG and Bankex are leading the gains, up over 1%.

Ruchi Soya, up 8.5%, Tata Global, up 4.1%, and United Spirits, up 2% are top gainers from the FMCG pack.

From the banking counters, ICICI Bank, Federal Bank and Yes Bank have surged over 2.5%.

Realty is the only index trading in the red, down 0.7%; dragged by Unitech and Anatraj industries, down 2%.
 
Of the total 2892 stocks traded, 1778 stocks have advancced while 1014 have declined on the BSE.