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Market remained choppy in a narrow range a day after both the benchmarks surged almost 2% over hopes that retail or consumer inflation will ease in the month of December owing to cooling of vegetable prices.
At 11:00 AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 42 points at 21,091 and the 50-share Nifty was down 14 points at 6,259.
"Correction could end at the 6250 support or go deeper till 6225. Try and go long at close to 6250 levels with a stop loss at 6225," says technical analyst and market expert Devangshu Datta.
TCS down 1.57%,Tata Motors down 1%, ICICI Bank down 0.49%, HUL down 0.89%, Tata Steel down almost 2% are the key frontline stocks that are weighing the Sensex down at this hour. HDFC, HDFC Bank, Infosys, L&T and RIL are the key winners at this hour.
Market will now wait for December wholesale price inflation numbers, seen at 7% and due Wednesday, ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy review review on January 28, where it is expected to maintained to status quo on key policy rates after retail or cosumer inlfation moderated more than expectations.
A month after touching a record high, consumer price index-based inflation came down to a three-month low of 9.87 per cent in December, thanks to vegetable prices. CPI-based (consumer price-indexed inflation-based) had touched 11.16 per cent in November.
On the global front, Asian shares came under pressure on Tuesday, with Japanese stocks tumbling more than 2% as the yen hovered near a four-week high against the dollar after last week's surprisingly weak jobs report raised concerns about the US growth outlook.
Tokyo's Nikkei benchmark shed 2.6%, hitting a one-month low as investors there caught up to the fallout from the nonfarm payroll report following Monday's public holiday in Japan.
Back home, India's currency, debt and money markets will be closed today for a public holiday.
The partially convertible rupee closed on Monday at 61.55/56 per dollar compared with 61.89/90 on Friday.
On the sectoral front, BSE IT index has plunged by nearly 1%. However, BSE Capital Goods index has surged by over 1%.
The main gainers on the Sensex at this hour include L&T, M&M, HDFC, Coal India, Sesa Sterlite, Cipla, Hindalco, ITC and HDFC Bank.
On the losing side, Tata Motors, TCS, ONGC, Tata Steel and Wipro have declined between 1-2%.
IT stocks have fallen on profit-taking after the recent run-up on Infosys' better-than-expected quarterly results.
Ranbaxy Labs has plunged 1.6%, adding to Monday's 5.4% slump after the U.S. FDA raised concerns about the manufacturing practices at a factory owned by the company
Among other shares, CMC has tanked 8% at Rs 1,586 after reporting 4.8% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 70.54 crore for the third quarter ended December 2013 (Q3). The company had profit of Rs 67.31 crore in September quarter.
Merck has gained 4.34% at Rs 576 after Reliance Mutual Fund bought 1.54% stake in the pharma company on Monday, 13 January 2014.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and the Small-cap index are up between 0.1-0.4%.
Market breadth in BSE remains positive with 988 gainers and 862 losers on the BSE.
