March 28: The Sensex briefly crossed the 19,000 mark on FII buying to close at 18,943.4 up 127.50 points while the Nifty closed at 5687.25 up 33 points. The FIIs are reported to have pumped in around `900 crore on Monday. The Nifty is expected to trade in the range of 5,400-5,740/50 but to break out of this narrow range it will need a major trigger, said Mr Ambareesh Baliga of Way2Wealth. Normally it could have been the results that could have been the trigger, but the results could be disappointing. One thing is clear that the bottom has been made at 5,200 levels and we are closer to the 5,400-5,750 levels.
Most analysts feel there is strength in the Indian markets as despite all the adverse news the markets never went below the trading range and held on to the 5,400 levels decisively. Other global markets reacted to the negative news from Japan and the West Asia. Mr Sarvana Kumar, CIO, Tata AIG Life Insurance said insurance firms have also been buyers in the past few weeks as they get a major chunk of their income in the March quarter. He estimates the net buying by insurance companies at $300 million by the beginning of March. Mutual funds also tend to be buyers at this time because the financial year is coming to an end and they want to show healthy NPA, he added.