Markets in green in morning trades

Markets opened soft following weak cues from the Asian markets. Sensex opened down four points at 18,169. Thereafter, with buying in heavyweights, the index recovered and was up 118 points at 18,291. Nifty was up 35 points at 5,479.

Markets in Asia, especially in Japan, have succembed to the pressure after Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami. The Nikkei slumped 4.5% to 9,789 after remaining shut for most part of the day on Friday after the earthquake struck. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite slipped 0.4% each in trades.

Back home on Friday, dropped 154 points to end at 18,063. Nifty was down 49 points at 5,445. The week saw the Sensex dropping 1.6% ( as compared to the previous Friday) on crisis in the Middle East, earthquake in Japan and political tussle among two parties in India.

Markets would now be looking at the advance tax collection on Tuesday and RBI's mid-quarterly policy review on Thursday for direction.

BSE oil & gas index jumped in morning trades. The index was up 1% at 9,823. Metal, PSU and bankex also staged a comeback.

However, the IT and auto indices were weak in morning trades.

Reliance has helped the markets this morning, followed by ICICI Bank.

Tata Steel jumped 2% to Rs 594. Sterlite gained 1.3% to Rs 162.

ONGC added 1.5% to Rs 286. Reliance Infra, Jaiprakash Associates and Tata Power added over 1% each. NTPC, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra and Reliance Communications were up marginally.

Meanwhile, Maruti Suzuki shed 1.6% at Rs 1,232. Hero Honda and Cipla dropped 1% each.