Markets ended today's rangebound trading session on a flat note. The Sensex provisionally closed at 17,086, down 16 points and the 50-share Nifty closed lower by 9 points at 5,188 levels.
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(Updated at 14:45 hours)
Markets are trading on a flat note in the late noon deals on the back of selling pressure visible in the select auto and IT stocks. The BSE Sensex is up 41 points at 17,144 and the 50-share Nifty is down 8 points at 5,202.
Meanwhile, the European shares rose and the euro firmed on Tuesday in line with a broad rally in riskier assets due to talk that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may signal more monetary stimulus in testimony to the US Congress later in the day. The CAC 40, DAX and FTSE were trading higher by 0.5% each.
The Asian markets ended the day on a strong note as investors covered short positions and hunted for bargains while awaiting US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's view on the U.S. economy expected later in the day. Hang Seng advanced 1.75% or 334 points at 19,455, Nikkei jumped 30 points to 8,755 and Shanghai Com[posite added 13 points to close at 2,161 levels.
Back home, healthcare stocks are witnessing the buying interest in trades today. Dr Reddy's Labs is the top gainer among the Sensex stocks, up 2.5% at Rs 1,717, Sun Pharma, Biocon, Cadila Healthcare and Ranbaxy are also tradoing higher by 1.5-2.6% eah.
Among the other heavyweight stocks, Bharti Airtel has jumped 2.5% to Rs 328 extending its previous day’s around 4% rally ahead of Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) meeting on tomorrow to decide on which prices to charge for 2G radio airwaves at an upcoming auction. Wipro, ITC, Hindalco, Coal India, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Hero MotoCorp and Jindal Steel are also trading higher.
On the other hand, Bajaj Auto, TCS, Tata Motors, Sterlite Industries, BHEL, Cipla, Mahindra & Mahindra, ONGC, NTPC, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Steel are among the losers.
On the sectoral front, barring healthcare and FMCG indices all are trading in the red. BSE healthcare index is the top sectoral gainer up nearly 1% or 58 points at 7,054 levels. At the same time, auto, power. IT, capital goods, realty, PSU, metal and Banklex indices have slipped 0.2-1% each.
Shares of aviation companies such as Kingfisher Airlines, Spicejet and Jet Airways are trading lower by 0.6-1.4% each after the oil marketing companies (OMCs) hiked the air turbine fuel (ATF) prices on Monday.
Bajaj Finance has moved higher by 5% at Rs 1,010, its record high market price, on reporting an healthy 53% year-on-year (yoy) growth in net profit at Rs 139 crore for Q1 of current fiscal, on back of strong growth in operational income. Net interest income grew 41% at Rs 439 crore on yoy basis.
Swelect Energy Systems (formerly Numeric Power Systems) has tanked 49%, or Rs 137, to Rs 145 after the stock turned ex-dividend today.
The broader markets are underperforming the benchmark indices. The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices have slipped 0.4% each.
The overall breadth is negative as 1,697 stocks are declining while 982 are advancing.
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