Nifty ends above 5000, at 16-mth high; HDFC up 4.5%

The Nifty maintained the uptrend for the fifth consecutive session and closed above the 5,000 mark for the first time since May 22, 2008 i.e. at 16-month high. The benchmark indices gained over 4% in five days. Buying in financial, technology, power, pharma, auto and oil marketing companies' shares helped the markets to stay on the higher side throughout the session. Over 0.9% gain in European markets and 0.6% upside in US index futures were also supportive to the indices. However, selling in oil & gas exploration and select metal stocks capped the gains. Bharti Airtel was down 3.4%. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,886.43, up 145.13 points or 0.87% over previous close. The 50-share NSE Nifty went up 0.89% or 44.15 points, to settle at 5020.20. The broader indices also followed the same trend, rose 0.7-1%. Technical Analyst, Ashwani Gujral advised to take at least 50% of profit. "October Nifty is trading at 20 points premium, put-call ratio is near all-time high. It’s prudent to take at least 50% of your profit and look for any weakness to go short on the market. Because you had a 10% rally from 4,580 up to 5,050 almost. So it’s a 500 points rally, so at least you know you need to take money off the table at least on individual stocks, it’s very difficult to get follow through from here." Independent Analyst, K Ramchandran said he was continuing to be pretty cautious on the market. "I believe there are no incremental triggers at this point of time to take the market on a sustainable basis to higher levels. He also said, "Any serious correction will take along with it all the sectors and particularly the high beta stocks which have been buzzing around in the last few sessions." Volumes were very high ahead of F&O expiry on Thursday. Total traded turnover was at Rs 1,04,763.95 crore as against Rs 95,012.87 crore on Friday. This included Rs 16,170.80 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 82,944.72 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 5,648.43 crore from the BSE cash segment. On the global front, Asian markets ended mixed. Hang Seng, Straits Times and Kospi gained 1-1.4%. Jakarta went up 0.7%. However, Shanghai tanked 2.34% and Taiwan Weighted was down 0.45%. On the commodities front, base metals have seen huge buying. Nickel, Tin, Lead, Aluminium, Copper and Zinc were up 1.5-4% on the LME (London Metal Exchange). Crude futures went up 0.9%, to $ 70.64 a barrel on the NYMEX. Gold was trading at $ 1016 per ounce, up 1.23%. Silver was up 2.3%, to $ 17.24 an ounce.