Domestic equity markets shrugged off weak cues from other Asian equities to shut shop in the green on Monday. Banking, public sector undertaking and auto stocks were the major growth drivers for the markets during the session. On the other hand, minor profit booking was witnessed in shares from healthcare, oil & gas and metal sectors. The markets drifted lower after opening flat this morning. However, value picking from investors in IT major -- TCS -- and leading lenders -- HDFC Bank and Axis Bank -- tracking their strong quarterly earnings lifted the key indices within few minutes of trade and from then on the markets never looked back in trade except some jitters in late trades which caused minor damage to the main bourses. But the benchmarks managed a smart recovery from those levels to finish the day with respectable gains. The apprehensions of rate hike from the central bank faded after some media reports suggested that large number of banks were unlikely to increase interest rates, even if the RBI raises the cash reserve ratio (CRR). Apart from this, most of the economists urging the finance minister to continue with the fiscal stimulus also boosted marketmen's confidence in trade. Lots of result specific actions were seen during the session. Weak quarterly results from cement major, Ultratech Cement played a spoilsport for cement producing counters, which were buzzing from past few days on the expectations of good earnings from sector leaders. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 86.78 points or 0.49% to settle at 17,641.08, while the S&P CNX Nifty added 22.65 points or 0.43% to end at 5274.85.

US markets were closed on Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Crude prices went above $78 per barrel on Monday, snapping a five-day losing streak as the dollar eased against a basket of currencies. US markets were closed on Monday for a public holiday and volume was relatively light. Benchmark crude for February delivery was up 47 cents at $78.47 a barrel on Monday in electronic trading session, after earlier touching a three-week intraday low of $77.07. In London, Brent crude for February delivery rose 24 cents to $77.35 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Indian rupee closed with gains on Monday though the domestic currency made a flat start and hit its one week low of 45.84 in the early trades but soon recovered as the local stock markets bounced back bucking global trends.  Also the dollar turned weak against other currencies overseas. Though, rupee pared some of its gains in late trade tracking the choppiness in the local stock markets. Finally the rupee closed at 45.64, 14 paise stronger compared to its Friday's close of 45.78.

The FII on Monday were the net sellers in the equity segment with gross buying of Rs 1983.60 crore against gross sell of Rs 2873.40 crore, while in the debt segment they were the net buyers with a gross purchase of Rs 1465.90 crore against gross sales of Rs 99.90 crore.

The US markets were closed on Monday observing Martin Luther King Jr. holiday so they were unable to give any cue to the other markets. The Asian markets have made a mixed start and some of the indices are trading in red with a cut of more than half a percent. The domestic markets bucked the trends of other markets in previous trading and managed the close of modest gains. The market trends are likely to remain firm though any major action is not expected lacking any triggers and the trade is likely to remain range bound. Stock specific movement can be seen based on the performance of the different companies.

Support and Resistance: S&P CNX Nifty and BSE Sensex

                                                          Nifty Top volumes

• Uninor, the telecom arm of Unitech and Telenor is planning an all-India roll-out of its services this year.
• Suzlon is in talks with a few state-owned banks and other lenders to restructure loans aggregating Rs 8,650 crore.
• JP Associates reported that its net profit declined by 38.90% to Rs 103.02 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2009.
• Tata Steel has changed the name of its fully owned subsidiary Tata Ryerson to Tata Steel Processing and Distribution.
• Maruti Suzuki India has decided to go for marginal increase in the prices of some of its models to partly recover the rise in the input costs.