Indian equity benchmarks were consolidating for fourth consecutive session today. The Nifty has been moving in a tight range of 5610-5650 since the beginning of this week.
"From a trading perspective, 5,575 is the first key support, from a positional point of view it is about 5,510. On the upside, 5,700-5,750 still remains the key resistance zone for the Nifty," Anil Manghnani, Modern Shares & Stock Brokers said.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 18,755, up 11 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose just 3 points to 5,635. Broader indices too were following the same trend.
Heavyweights Bharti Airtel, HDFC and L&T were supporting the market, with rising 1% each. NTPC, Reliance Industries, TCS and HDFC Bank were marginally in the green.
However, ONGC, ICICI Bank and SBI were putting pressure on the market, with falling about 1%. ITC and Wipro too were on sellers' radar, with moderate loss.
Oil marketing as well as airline companies' shares were on sellers' radar due to rise in crude oil prices post Barclays’ report. Barclays raised Brent forecast to USD 115/barrel, a gain of USD 10/barrel. Brent crude was trading at USD 114 a barrel.
BPCL, IOC, HPCL, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet were down 1-2%.
In the midcaps pace, Persistent, WABCO-TVS, Sterling International, KEC International and BASF were up 3-5% while KGN Industries, IRB Infra, Indiabulls Financial, Jet Airways and 3M India lost 2-5%.
In the smallcap space, Ashapura Mine, Midvalley Entertainment, Infinite Computer, Hindustan Media and Arshiya Intl gained 7-11% whereas India Securities, Signet Inds, ABG Infralogistics, Mahindra Forgings and Accentia Tech slipped 4-5%.