Lacklustre trades continue in the noon deals as there was no respite in the September inflation data which came almost in line with the expectation at 7.81%. At 12:40 pm, the Sensex was down 48 points at 18,627 and the Nifty slipped 15 points at 5,660.
Inflation rose from a year earlier as prices of potato, pulses, wheat and sugar soared. The impact of increase in diesel prices is partly reflected in last month’s figures. High speed diesel inflation soared 8.94% after the government increased diesel prices by Rs 5 on September 13.
The data comes ahead of Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy on October 30. The central bank is under pressure to lower interest rates as its anti-inflationary stance has hurt growth. But a further rise in inflation would make RBI’s job difficult.
In the broader markets, the smallcap index gained 0.5% outperforming the midacp which was flat with a negative bias and the Sensex which lost nearly 0.3%
Among the sectoral indices, Health Care and Oil & Gas indices were the only ones in the green with 0.3-0.5% gains. On the other hand, Consumer Durables, IT, PSU, Bankex, Capital Goods and Metal indices lost 0.4-0.8%.
The top gainers among the Sensex-30 were Hindalco, Cipla, Dr Reddys Lab, Tata Power, Mahindra & Mahindra up 1-1.5%. Index heavyweight, Reliance Industries gained 0.6% ahead of Q2 earnings announcement.
Among the major draggers were Maruti Suzuki, Sterlite, Coal India, Infosys and Bharti Airtel down 1-2%. Tata Steel, Gail India, BHEL, TCS, NTPC down 0.5-0.6% were the other notable losers.
Among other stocks, Torrent Cables dipped 9% to Rs 102 after reporting over 100 basis points decrease in operating margins to 6.46% for the quarter ended September 2012 from 7.85% in a year ago quarter.
Tilaknagar Industries surged over 9% to Rs 69.40, also its 52-week high on back of over three-fold jump in trading volumes. As many as 3.92 million shares have already changed hands on the counter till early noon deals as against an average around one million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks.
The market breadth was positive as 1329 stocks advanced while 1230 stocks declined on the BSE.
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