MUMBAI: Indian markets opened in the positive terrain on Tuesday led by gains from power, realty and banks. Trade is likely to turn choppy as the session progresses due to December series expiry later in the week.

“The US stocks edged higher for a sixth straight day on Monday as data indicating improved consumer spending lifted shares of retailers. The US oil futures settled at $78.77 a barrel, after hitting $79.12, a five-week high. Back home, derivative expiry of the December series will be the key event to watch out for this week. Overall rollover so far has been 36%, as against 31% for the comparable period last month and 3 months’ average of 29%. Amongst sectors, cement and metal have seen the highest rollover while sugar has seen the least rollover. December 5200 call has not seen any significant reduction in open interest and is having the highest open interest among all the strikes which in turn indicates that expiry might be around these levels. However a sustained trading above 5230-5240 would compel 5200 call writers to run for a cover, taking the indices even higher,” said Anagram Stock Broking note.

At 10:03 am, National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5198.45, up 20.05 points or 0.39 per cent. The index hit 52-week high of 5202.05 in early trade.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 17421.86, up 61.25 points or 0.35 per cent. The 30-share index touched a high 17430.59 and low of 17388.67.

“Global markets and fund flow, will continue to play important role in directing our market trends. Reiterating our earlier view, technically levels of 4850 will remain a crucial support on weekly basis. On higher side 5180-5200 remains extremely crucial hurdle on closing basis. Traders are advised to keenly watch mentioned levels for further direction during the week. Being expiry week stock specific action may catch momentum,” said Reliance Money report.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.44 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index moved 0.70 per cent higher.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Power Index was up 0.82 per cent, BSE Realty Index moved 0.44 per cent higher and BSE Bankex moved 0.42 per cent up.

Reliance Power (4.18%) NTPC (2.89%), Power Grid (2.16%), IDEA (1.54%) and Bharti Airtel (1.51%) were amongst the top Nifty gainers.

Ranbaxy Laboratories (-2.11%), Sun Pharma (-0.75%), ONGC (-0.68%), HCL Tech (-0.37%) and BPCL (-0.34%) were amongst the major losers.

One of the four 300 MW-capacity units of a thermal power plant developed by Reliance Power has been commissioned in Rosa. The second 300 MW-unit will be commissioned by the end of January, and will be followed by the other two 300 MW-units by March 2012. The 1,200-MW plant at Roja, is located about 175 km from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow.

Ranbaxy's US unit Ohm Laboratories has received a warning letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), about violating manufacturing practices at its plant. The US health regulator has raised concerns about certain GMP (good manufacturing practice) violations based on site inspections conducted between July and August, 2009.

Market breadth was positive on the BSE with 1241 advances and 397 declines.

The US markets closed in the green on improved consumer spending during the holiday season. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 26.98 points higher, Nasdaq Composite ended 5.39 points higher and S&P 500 inched 1.30 per cent higher.

The Asian markets were litte changed. The Nikkei 225 was down 0.31 per cent, Hang Seng slipped 0.27 per cent and Taiwan Weighted declined 0.27 per cent. Strait Times was up 0.13 per cent.