After the large slide Thursday, Indian stock markets opened with marginal gains, aided by oil & gas, pharma and power stocks. India had witnessed one of the worst closing in seven months when the 30-share BSE Sensex crashed 317 points and the 50-stock NSE Nifty relinquished 5800 decisively. The cautious move in market also reflects US sentiment, where stocks fell for a second straight day and the S&P 500 posted its worst two-day loss since November. Recent reports suggest that the health of the US and euro-zone economies were far from sound.

At 09.23 AM, the Sensex was up 21.27 points at 19346.63, and the Nifty inched 3.05 points on the upside to trade at 5855.30. GAIL and ONGC were up 1 percent, while Reliance and IOC were gained more than  half a percent. In the pharma space, Sun Pharma and Cipla moved up 1 percent helping the indices to stay in the green zone.

Realty major DLF too appreacited (1.5 percent), and so were power stocks like power Grid and Tata Power.  Banks, however, remained down for the second consecutive day. HDFC fell 1.15 percent after Goldman Sachs cut its rating to sell from neutral on expectations that India’s economy would recover at a “modest” pace and the prospect of rising competition.

Breadth in the midcap segment had improved with more advances than declines. JK Cement moved up 6.7 percent after the sector saw reasonable price hikes across India. Jet Airways fell 3.35 percent on news the Jet-Etihad deal has been struck by fresh woes.

     LOCAL MARKETS PREVIOUS CLOSE

•      BSE index 19,325.36 (-1.62 pct)
•      NSE index 5,852.25 (-1.53 pct)
•      Rupee 54.47/48 per dollar (54.075/085)
•      10-year bond yield 7.81 pct (7.80 pct)
•      5-year OIS rate 7.24 pct (7.26 pct)
•      1-year OIS rate 7.62 pct (7.64 pct)
•      Call money 7.90/8.00 pct (7.85/7.95 pct)