Heavyweights drag markets lower

ITC, HUL and RIL among the top losers on Sensex

Markets continue to trade on a weak note in the moring deals on the back of selling pressure visible in the heavyweight stocks such as HUL, ITC and Reliance Industries. The Sensex is down 40 points at 18,465 and the 50-share Nifty has slipped 12 points to 5,607.

Meanwhile, HUL is the to[p Sensex loser. The stock has slipped 2.75% to Rs 532. ITC, reliance Industries, Hindalco, Jindal Steel, ONGC, GAIL India, Infosys and Tata Power are also trading weaker by 0.5-1% each.

Among the individual stocks, Tata Global Beverages Limited (TBGL) has surged 4% to Rs 156 after reporting a healthy 54% year-on-year (yoy) jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 119 crore mainly due to improved operating performance in branded and non branded business and lower finance costs.

Titan Industries is trading higher by over 4% at Rs 269 after reporting 21% year-on-year (yoy) growth in net profit at Rs 180 crore for the second quarter ended September 2012. The net profit was slightly better than analyst estimates of Rs 171 crore. Net revenues grew 9% at Rs 2,276 crore on y-o-y basis.

Wipro has rallied 4% to Rs 364, after the company said that its board has approved the demerger of consumer care and lighting business unit into a separate company to improve the competitiveness in their respective markets.
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(Updated at 9.16 AM)

Markets have opened on a lacklustre note in trades today tracking weakness in heavyweight stocks. The Sensex has opened lower by 29 points at 18,479 and the Nifty is down 9 points at 5,610.

Asian shares were trading marginally higher as investors waited for China's official manufacturing PMI for insight into whether growth in the world's second largest economy was bottoming out. Hang Seng advanced 0.4% to 21,748, Nikkei was up 0.3% at 8,962 and Shanghai Composite advanced 1.6% to 2,105. On the other hand, Seoul Composite and Taiwan Weighted were down 0.5% each.

Overnight, the US stock market slowly returned to life on Wednesday after two days in the dark, in the wake of the massive storm Sandy that caused the market's first weather-related two-day closure since the late 19th century.

The Dow and the S&P 500 closed little changed while the Nasdaq Composite edged lower in a session with slightly less than average volume.

Back home, index heayweight HUL is among the top Sensex losers, down 2.2% at Rs 535. Reliance Industries, Jindal Steel, ONGC, ITC, Hindalco, GAIL India, Sun Pharma, BHEL, Infosys, State Bank of India and Hero MotoCorp have also opened weaker by 0.2-0.8% each.

On the other hand, Tata Motors, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Labs, Coal India and Tata Steel are among the gainers.

On the sectoral front, BSE oil & gas indexis the top loser down 1% at 8,270. FMCG, bankex, metal and PSU indices have also opened lower by 0.2-0.6% each. At the same time, capital goods, auto, consumer durables and power indices are among the gainers.

The broader markets have opened on a listless note. The BSE mid-cap and smal-cap indices are up 0.1% each.

The overall breadth is positive as 633 stocks are advancing while 387 are declining.