Quiet opening for the stock market

New Delhi: It was a quiet opening for the stock market on Thursday with the Sensex near the 14K mark.

The markets opened on the back of continued optimism supported by anticipated robust Q3FY07 numbers of India Inc and increased participation of foreign funds.

Oil & gas, cement and pharma shares were in focus in the morning trade. However some profit booking is expected today as per experts.

At 0956 hrs IST the Sensex was up 27 points at 14,042 and Nifty was up 2 points at 4,027.

Leading gainers in the opening trade were Guj Ambuja, ONGC,HPCL, BPCL, Satyam, Deccan Aviation, GAIL, Rel Comm, L&T, Dr. Reddys Lab, ICICI Bank. However TCS, Polaris, MTNL and Patni were trading weaker.

Asian stocks were mixed to lower on Thursday, Japan's Nikkei was up 0.74 per cent or 127.84 points at 17,353.67, Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.13 per cent or 26.52 points at 20,439.91, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted gained 0.24 per cent or 19.22 points at 7,936.52.

However, Singapore's Straits Times plunged 0.35 per cent or 10.67 points at 3,027.07. South Korea's Seoul Composite was down 1.26 per cent or 17.8 points at 1,391.55.

The Dow was ended the day up 11.37 points, or 0.09 per cent, at 12,474.52 after surging to a new trading high of 12,580.35.

Market cues:

* FIIs net buy Rs 168 crore (Rs 1.68 billion) in equity on January 3 (Prov)

* MFs net sell Rs 7.98 crore (Rs 79.8 million) in equity on January 2

F&O cues:

* NSE F&O Open Interest up by Rs 2,171 crore (Rs 21.71 billion) at Rs 46,363 crore (Rs 463.63 billion)

* Futures Open Interest up by Rs 1,409 crore (Rs 14.09 billion); Options Open Interest up by Rs 762 crore (Rs 7.62 billion)

* Nifty Futures add 8.4 lakh shares in Open Interest

* Nifty Open Interest Put-Call ratio down to 1.56 from 1.58

* Nifty Calls add 5.6 lakh shares in Open Interest

* Nifty Puts add 7.6 lakh shares in Open Interest

* Nifty 4000 Puts add 4.3 lakh shares in Open Interest

* Nifty 4000 Calls add 2.6 lakh shares in Open Interest

* Nifty 4100 Calls add 2.2 lakh shares in Open Interest

(With inputs from moneycontrol.com)