Positive global markets push Sensex up

Indian stock markets were moderately up amid positive global cues. Asian stock markets were mostly up on Thursday, with Japan surging more than 2 per cent.

The Sensex was up 83 points at 17,253 while Nifty added 22 points to trade at 5,145.

Overnight, US stock market struggled but held its ground on Wednesday as an upbeat assessment of the economy from the Federal Reserve offset drops in banks and energy companies. The Dow fell 18.90, or 0.2 per cent, to 10,452.68. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 0.38, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 1,109.24, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 9.22, or 0.4 per cent, to 2,185.03.

"As long as market stay above 5100 levels, investors can take a long position," says Siddharth Sthalekar, manager of derivative sales at Edelweiss Securities. He remains bullish on pharma, metal and some banking stocks.

In the Indian markets, metal, realty and healthcare stocks saw some buying action. Among the Sensex stocks, Sterlite Ind, Hindalco, RCom and Bharti were up between 1.5 per cent and 2.4 per cent.