Markets continue trading lower in noon trade; pharma stocks drag

Pharma stocks were biggest losers with Nifty Pharma posting its sixth consecutive session of loss

Benchmark indices continued to trade lower in the afternoon trade with Nifty hovering around 9,400-level as investors booked profit in recent outperformers. The street also took cues from the global markets which were mostly trading lower post the explosion, at a concert by US singer Ariana Grande shook Manchester.
 
At 1:01 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 30,455, down 115 points, while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 9,403, down 34 points.
 
The broader market underperformed the benchmark indices with S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices dipped 1.2% and 1.7% respectively.
 

Maruti, M&M, Tata Steel, Tata Motors gained the most on BSE Sensex while Sun Pharma, GAIL Cipla and Adani Ports fell the most on the index.

 
The country's largest truck-and-bus maker, Tata Motors was up 1% ahead of its quarterly results to be declared later in the day.
 
Pharma stocks were the biggest losers with Nifty Pharma on track to post its sixth consecutive session of loss. The sectoral index fell over 3% dragged by Sun Pharma, Aurobino Plarma and Cipla
 
Sun Pharma fell as much as 6% to 601.500 rupees to its lowest since November 9 after Taro Pharmaceutical Industries reported 25.9% fall in net sales for the March quarter. Taro accounts for about one-fifth of Sun Pharma's revenue and profit. The stock posted its biggest intraday percentage drop since December 7

 
Aurobindo Pharma lost over 6% intraday on Tuesday after investors reacted to the developments around the insider trading case with the SEBI.
 
FMCG stocks snapped two sessions of gains, with the Nifty FMCG index dropping almost 1%. Both ITC and Dabur India, down 1.7 and 1.2% respectively, posted their first loss in three sessions.
 
Shares of state-run GAIL fell as much as 5.8% to their lowest since February 15 after the company posted a 69% fall in Q4 profit on Monday, on account of impairment charge on an investment
 
Bucking the broader trend, IT stocks and auto stocks gained with Tech Mahindra up over 1%, and Maruti Suzuki advancing 2.8%.

 
Globally, Asian stocks were mixed after the suspected terrorist attack in Manchester that killed at least 19 people and wounded 59. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan pared gains after hitting its highest level since June 2015 to trade fractionally higher while Japan's Nikkei slid 0.2%.
 
Sterling slipped on Tuesday post the explosion while the euro held gains made after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was "too weak".