Markets turn flat; Hero Motocorp slips nearly 3%

Benchmark indices are swinging between the positive and negative territory and continue to trade in a tight range as investors remain wary ahead of the FOMC meet starting today and F&O expiry due on Thursday. Also, muted earnings and deadlock in the Parliament coupled with P-Notes concern has dampened the sentiments. 

At 2:20 PM, the Sensex was down 5 points at 27,556 and the Nifty was up 4 points at 8,365. Top 5 losers on the BSE include ICICI Bank, Hero Motocorp, Tata Motors, HDFC and Bharti Airtel down between 1-3%.

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(updated at 1:50 PM)

Markets have slipped in the negative territory owing to weakness in financials coupled with losses in Tata Motors as the Chinese economic slowdown has hurt the JLR sales.

Meanwhile, investors remain wary ahead of the FOMC meet starting today and F&O expiry due on Thursday. Also, muted earnings and deadlock in the Parliament coupled with P-Notes concern has dampened the sentiments. 

At 1:50PM, the Sensex was down 101 points at 27,459 and the Nifty was 26 points at 8,335.

Top 5 losers on the BSE include ICICI Bank, Hero Motocorp, Tata Motors, HDFC and Bharti Airtel down between 1-3%.
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(updated at 1:15 PM)

Markets continued to trade flat in noon trades on Tuesday, amid weak Asian cues, on concerns of capital outflows after the special investigation team proposed stricter norms for participatory notes. Further, investors also turned cautious ahead of the July F&O expiry on Thursday and the two-day US Fed meet begins later today.

At 1:15PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 36 points at 27,597 and the 50-share Nifty was   17 points at 8,378.

Foreign Institutional Investors were net sellers in equities to the tune of Rs 860 crore, as per provisional stock exchange data.

The Indian rupee was trading higher at 64.02 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of 64.16 in the wake of demand for the greenback from banks and importers.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Chinese stocks extended losses and the benchmark Shanghai Composite ended down 1.7% while Hang Seng ended higher by 1%. Further, shares in Japan ended flat with negative bias while Straits Times was down 0.8%.

European shares were trading with marginal gains. The CAC-40, DAX and FTSE-100 were up 0.5-0.6% each.

SECTORS & STOCKS

BSE Realty index was the top loser down 2% followed by Auto, Metal, Oil and Gas indices. Capital Goods, Bankex and FMCG were the top gainers.

Realty shares were under pressure on reports of large inventory levels as demand continues to remain subdued amid high interest rates on home loans. DLF, Godrej Properties, Prestige Estates, HDIL and Sobha were down over 3% each.

L&T was up nearly 1% ahead of its first quarter earnings on July 31 while BHEL was up 1.7% after the company recently announced order wins.

Maruti Suzuki trimmed early gains and was trading marginally higher after the company reported net profit which was marginally below than estimates.

Mortgage lender HDFC is trading nearly 1% lower on caution ahead of the Q1 results due today.

Tata Motors was down over 2% amid sluggish JLR sales on the back of Chinese economic slowdown.

Tech Mahindra was up 1% after reporting a net profit of Rs 676 crore compared to Rs 472 crore in the previous quarter. The company's dollar revenue grew by 0.5% to $989 million (QoQ).

Hero MotoCorp was down over 2%. The two-wheeler major in a release today said that its US-based wholly-owned subsidiaries has entered into settlement agreement to acquire the ownership of certain tangible and intangible assets of EBR Entities (Erik Buell Racing, Inc and Erik Buell LLC).

Among other shares, Bank of India  shares dipped almost 5% to Rs 156, its fresh 52-week low on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), after reporting a lower-than-expected standalone net profit at Rs 130 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2015 (Q1), due to higher provisioning for bad loans.