Key equity benchmarks opened marginally in green tracking positive Asian shares in the morning trade. S&P 500 finished above 1,600 and the Dow briefly closed above 15,000 for the first time on Friday as Wall Street cheered a better-than-expected US April non-farm payrolls report. The RBI credit policy which turned out to be a sentiment dampener was out of the way and the market will now focus on individual stocks that will report their quarterly earnings this week.

Banking stock markets were biggest laggards in trade today. IT stocks continued their V-shape recovery in May after losing over 10 percent in April series. Metal stocks were key gainers in the Nifty for second consecutive day. The Sensex was up 28 points at 19604 and the Nifty was up 2 points at 5946. About 642 shares advanced, 318 shares declined and 50 shares remain unchanged.

Top gainers in the Nifty were Hindalco, TCS, Tata Steel, Sesa Goa and Reliance Infra. Kotak Mahindra, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Jaiprakash Associates and IDFC were top losers. Saurabh Mukherjea of Ambit Capital echoed his bullish sentiment on the market in his interview to CNBC-TV18. He maintains a target of 23,000 on Sensex by the end of this calendar year citing cool-off in commodity prices as one of the positives for Indian market. Ambit Capital is bullish on oil&gas and auto space but maintains cautious stance on banks.

Buzzing Stocks

Shares in Suzlon Energy gained more than two percent on Monday as the company plans to raise up to USD 400 million by selling 15 of its non-core assets. With these funds, the world’s fifth largest wind turbine maker will partly retire its debt pile of nearly Rs 14,600 crore, PTI quoting a top company official said.

SpiceJet was up 3 percent after ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s wife Rekha Jhunjhunwala, bought 25 lakh shares of the company on Friday for a sum of Rs 9.73 crore at an average price of Rs 38.94. Reliance Industries was up 1 percent after the company surrendered 10 blocks on Friday which would scale down its oil and gas portfolio to 17 exploration blocks.

Aurobindo Pharma received final approvals from US FDA to sell generic versions of two separate drugs Tamsulosin HCL and Clindamycin Palmitate Hydrochloride. The stock was up 1 percent. Jaiprakash Associates was down over 1 percent after the company reported 56.5 percent drop in its fourth quarter net profit to Rs 124 crore from Rs 284 crore, a year earlier. JP’s cement and real estate verticals dragged the overall performance of the company.