Lalu's speech over, markets end with moderate gains

New Delhi: Markets have opened with modest gains on the back of some positive cues from Wall Street. Wall Street ended higher; Dow was up 189 points. Asia is trading higher but there is no run away rally. Power, realty and banking stocks were among the top gainers on the indices.

At 1006 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 96.28 points or 0.55 per cent at 17746.85, and the Nifty up 42.45 points or 0.82 per cent at 5243.15.

About 1587 shares have advanced, 1361 shares declined, and 87 shares are unchanged.

ICICI Bank, RPL, Cairn, Reliance Energy, Unitech, Suzlon, ONGC, Nalco, Wipro, HCL Tech, Tata Communication were among the top gainers.

Bharti, Satyam, Hindalco were among the top losers on the indices.

Rupee opens at Rs 39.91 per dollar and was trading at 39.93.

Market cues:

• FIIs net sell $112.5 million in equity.
• MFs net sell Rs 163.6 cr in equity.
• NSE F&O Open Interest up by Rs 2,622 crore at Rs 79,820 crore.

Asian markets were trading higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.71 per cent. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.50 per cent. Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted gained 0.67 per cent, Singapore's Straits Times surged 1.15 per cent. South Korea's Seoul Composite shot up 0.24 per cent.

F&O cues:

• Futures Open Interest up by Rs 1,630 crore and Options Open Interest up by Rs 992 crore.
• Nifty Feb Futures shed 40 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty Mar Futures add 48 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty Open Interest Put-Call ratio at 1 Vs 0.92.
• Nifty Puts add 16.9 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty Calls add 3.2 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty 4800 Put adds 5 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty 4900 Put adds 3.6 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty 5000 Put adds 3.3 lakh shares in Open Interest.
• Nifty 5500 Call adds 1.3 lakh shares in Open Interest.

(with moneycontrol.com inputs)