Markets roar in opening trade: Nifty hits 4,600

New Delhi: After hitting the historical 15,500 mark on Thursday, the markets roared once again in the opening trade Friday on the back of buying seen across he board.

Cues from the global markets coupled with strong quarterly results boosted the market sentiment. Metal, telecom, cement and banking stocks were in focus with impressive breadth and volume in early trade.

At 9:56 hours, IST Sensex was up 106 points at 15,656 and Nifty was up 38 points at 4,600. Major gainers in the opening trade were Reliance, Rel Comm, Ranbaxy, M&M, Bharti, Sun Pharma, NTPC, ONGC, SBI, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Ambuja Cement. However, Satyam was down on lower earnings guidance for FY08.

Asian markets were trading firm today, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.80% or 184.73 points at 23,200.93, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.35% or 63.68 points at 18,180.25, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted was up 0.51% or 48.24 points at 9,521.55, Singapore's Straits Times advanced 1.06% or 38.26 points at 3,642.83 and South Korea's Seoul Composite surged 1.66% or 32.08 points at 1,969.98.

US markets: The Dow rose 82.19 points, or 0.59%, to 14,000.41. Broader stock indicators also gained Thursday. The S&P 500 rose 6.91 points, or 0.45%, to 1,553.08; its previous record of 1,552.50 occurred Friday. The technology-focused Nasdaq composite index rose 20.55 points, or 0.76%, to 2,720.04, following the upbeat tech earnings.

Market cues:

• FIIs net buy USD 302.6 million in equity on July 18
• MF figure for July 18 not released
• NSE F&O Open Interest up by Rs 2,597 crore (Rs 25.97 billion) at Rs 88,591 crore (Rs 885.91 billion)

F&O cues:

• Futures Open Interest up by Rs 2,178 crore (Rs 21.78 billion), Options Open Interest up by Rs 419 crore (Rs 4.19 billion)
• Nifty July adds 1.5 lakh shares in Open Interest
• Nifty Aug adds 19 lakh shares in Open Interest
• Nifty July at 16-pt discount, Aug at 36-pt discount
• Nifty Open Int Put-Call ratio up to 1.65 from 1.60
• Nifty Call Open Interest unchanged, Puts add 7.3 lakh shares in Open Interest
• Nifty 4450 Put adds 3.5 lakh shares in Open Interest
• Nifty 4550 Put adds 3.2 lakh shares in Open Interest