Nifty above 5550

Indian equity benchmarks were trading with moderate gains amid volatility, led by heavyweights Reliance Industries, Infosys and TCS, which gained 1-1.7%. The 50-share NSE Nifty was hovering at around 5550 level.
The index was trading at 5,555, up 23 points and the 30-share BSE Sensex gained 75 points at 18,496. Market breadth too turned in favour of advances - about 764 shares advanced as against 506 shares declined on National Stock Exchange.

Ramdev says.......

The yoga guru said that he suspects that the police would now edit the recordings made by the CCTV cameras installed at the ground in a bid to wipe out the evidence so that they escape action.

"We had put CCTV cameras in the camp, which recorded the events. If the police had not done anything wrong, why did they took away the footages forcibly. This is clear cut goondaism of the police.

"Our workers who had gone there have been embroiled in false cases under a conspiracy. The police will now edit the footage and then release after deleting portions so that no action follows against them," Ramdev said.

He alleged that the police lobbed hundreds of tear gas shells in a bid to suffocate him to death where he was hiding. Ramdev said there could be conspiracies to kill him by strangulating, burning the stage on which he was sitting and shooting him.

He said the government's argument that there was a threat of terrorist attack on him could be the fifth conspiracy to eliminate him and alleged that an e-mail has been "manufactured" by the government to make it convincing.

Nifty in narrow range

The Nifty was lacklustre in trade and was moving in a tight range of 5520-5545. Market could be waiting for some trigger to move on either side - may be RBI policy or any global event.

Heavyweights Reliance Industries, Infosys and TCS were supporting the market, with rising around 1%. Sun Pharma and Cipla continued their upside, with gaining nearly 2% each.

Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, DLF, M&M, JSPL, Grasim, Tata Motors, Reliance Infrastructure and Jaiprakash Associates were other gainers in trade.

Gold hits one-month high

Gold rose to its highest price in more than a month on Monday, as fears of a slowing US economy and expectations that Federal Reserve monetary policy would remain easy prompted safe-haven demand.

Bullion has gained nearly 6% in the past three weeks, boosted by a string of disappointing US economic indicators including Friday's weak jobs data.

"A lot of people are taking their risk off by getting out of the S&P 500 and other riskier assets. There is too much uncertainty with the US currency and the euro," said Phillip Streible, senior market strategist with Lind Waldock, a unit of futures broker MF Global.

"So, people think the safest place is the gold market at the moment."

Nifty volatile

Indian equity benchmarks slipped marginally in the opening trade amid volatility, could be tracking weak US cues. But overall it has been in a consolidation mode since yesterday. The Nifty still holds the 5500 mark.

Among frontliners, Maruti Suzuki, Jaiprakash Associates, ONGC, Bajaj Auto, M&M, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC, IDFC, NTPC, L&T, HUL and ITC were pulling the markets down. However, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Cipla, Ranbaxy Labs, Reliance Infrastructure, Dr Reddy's Labs were supporting the markets.

At 9:18 hours IST, the 50-share NSE Nifty was trading at 5,513, down 19 points and the 30-share BSE Sensex fell 54 points to 18,365.