News Tonight

Indian stock markets continued to stay positive on the back of buying activity seen across the board prior to June series F&O expiry.

Scrips from FMCG, metal, oil & gas and power headed the charts.

At 11:45 a. m., Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex gained 159.40 points to trade at 18651.85. The 30-share index touched an intraday high of 18691.67 and an intraday low of 18552.19 up till now.

The broad-based Nifty remained at 5593.60 after surging 48.30 points (0.87%). It also hit an intraday high of 5602.45 and an intraday low of 5566.50 in trade thus far.

As per Nirmal Bang report, "Markets continue to hold 5500-mark as buying still continues in select banking stocks and metals stocks which are currently holding the momentum. The short term trend still looks strong and positive till the June expiry. Immediate support seen at 5505 / 5462 and resistance at 5585 and stability above 5585 could bring into fresh buying which could drive the nifty up to 5622 / 5656."

The BSE Midcap Index surged 0.74% and the BSE Smallcap Index remained up by 1.04%.

Amongst sectoral indices, the BSE FMCG Index surged 1.42%, BSE Metal Index zoomed 1.26% and BSE Power Index grew by 1.25%.

The top Sensex gainers comprised Rel Infra (2.47%), Tata Motors (2.22%), Sterlite Ind (2.06%), BHEL (2.04%) and TCS (1.65%).

The SC has forwarded temporary relief to the Tatas in Singur land case.

The SC has ordered the West Bengal administration to not to give back land to agriculturists in Singur.

The Calcutta High Court will carry on with the key matter pending before it.

Bajaj Auto (-0.83%), Jaiprakash Associates (-0.44%), ONGC (-0.40%) and L&T (-0.10%) remained the top losers.

The overall breadth of the stock market remained optimistic on the BSE with 1706 gainers as compared to 800 losers.

In the meantime, the Asian bourses remained on a firm foot.

Nikkei 225 gained 1.54%, Seoul Composite climbed 1.53% and Taiwan Weighted increased 1.11%.