Markets continue to trade firm

Oil & gas index soars on ONGC

Markets continued to trade in the green but gave off some of it's early gains. The Sensex is up 109 points at 20,086. Nifty is up 34 points at 6,073.

In Asia, markets traded mostly in the green as Chinese economic data beat expectations, with Japan surging as the yen touched new multiyear lows. Nikkei added 2% to 10,835 - taking its monthly gain to almost 8%. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Taiwan Weighted also went up 1% each.

BSE oil & gas index has surged 3.2% at 9,384 ahead of market heavyweight - Reliance's result. BSE PSU, capital goods, metal and bankex have also added 0.3-2% each. However the auto and IT index are showing weakness in early trades - down 0.1% and 0.3% respectively.

Hero MotoCorp is down 4% at Rs 1,743. India's largest motorcycle maker missed estimates for the fourth straight quarter on Thursday as net profit fell 20.4% on rising costs and falling sales that battered margins.

India's third-largest software services provider Wipro has registered a rise of 18% in its consolidated net profit of Rs 1,716 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,456 crore in the year ago period. Wipro was the biggest dragger among Sensex stocks - down 3.8% at Rs 414. Among other losers are HUL, Bharti Airtel and TCS.

On the other hand, ONGC has soared 8% at Rs 341 after the government has partially deregulated diesel prices. The price hike decisions have been left to the oil marketing companies.

Gail, Hindalco and Maruti Suzuki are up 1-5% each. Among other key gainers are Coal India and Bajaj Auto.

Reliance, ahead of its results, is flat at Rs 890. HDFC Bank and ITC are trading higher by 0.6-0.7%. Both companies will post their quarterly numbers later today.

CDMA operators Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices will have to jointly shell out around Rs 2,900 as one-time spectrum fee following the Cabinet decision on CDMA spectrum. RCom is up marginallyat Rs 83 while Tata Tele was flat at Rs 12.62.