Nifty ends with moderate gains; RIL, TCS, Infosys lead

Indian equity benchmarks closed the session with moderate gains amid a choppy trade, led by oil & gas, select technology and auto companies' shares. Overall it was another day of consolidation for the market as it seemed that benchmarks could be waiting for some trigger like RBI policy or any global event.

The 50-share NSE Nifty gained 24 points, to close at 5,556 and the 30-share BSE Sensex went up 76 points, to end at 18,495. Market breadth too was in favour of advances - about 754 shares advanced as against 525 shares declined on National Stock Exchange.

Manoj Murlidharan Vayalar, Associate Vice President-Derivatives, IIFL link feels that the Nifty might pullback another 150 points on the upside from hereon. "We might see something close to 5700-5750. Ideally more or less after that I feel the range might definitely drift downward because with a value at risk and the option activity we are seeing along with what the volatility is doing. We feel Nifty might then rather go in for a range of somewhere close to 5200-5500, that would be the range we might see after swing trade of 7-8 days."

European markets and US index futures too were quite supportive in the last couple of hours of trade today.

France's CAC and Germany's DAX gained 0.7% each; Britain's FTSE rose just 0.3%. Dow Jones and Nasdaq futures were trading with 0.5% gains.

Heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys led the market higher today - both stocks rallied 2% each.