Markets at day lows

Profit booking inReliance Industries, Infosys and ICICI Bank

Key benchmark indices slipped further in noon deals declining over 0.7% each on account of profit booking in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Infosys and ICICI Bank. At 12:55 pm, the Sensex was down 147 points at 18,791 and the Nifty lost 52 points at 5,695.

Meanwhile, there was some amount of profit booking in midcap index too which lost 0.1% while the smallcap index retained some its gains, up nearly 0.2% outperforming the Sensex which was down 0.7%

Navneet Daga, Derivative Analyst, KR Choksey Securities notes that from here on we are moving into a consolidation mode between the range of 5650 to 5850 range on Nifty before making any decisive break on upside.

Asian stocks fell on Monday as investors remained cautious about the outlook for the global economy and corporate earnings despite better-than-expected U.S. jobs numbers last week. Taiwan Weighted and Straits Times down 1% each were the major losers. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Kospi Composite down 0.6% were the other major Asian markets in red.

Back home, among the sectoral indices, Health Care and FMCG were the only counters in green, adding 1.4% and 0.2% respectively. Among the draggers were Oil & Gas, Realty and Capital Goods indices down 1-2% each. Bankex, Auto, Consumer Durables too lost 0.4-0.7%

The top gainers among the Senex-30 in the noon deals were Sun Pharma, Sterlite, NTPC, ITC, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, Cipla and Dr Reddy’s Lab gained 1-4%.

On the losing side were Reliance Industries down 3% at Rs 832after the Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the company to 'underweight' from 'equal-weight' due to lack of near-term triggers, expectations for weaker refining margins and valuation.

The other losers were BHEL, Wipro, Tata Power, L&T, SBI and Hindalco down 2% each. Other major names included ICICI Bank, Infosys, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors and ONGC losing 1% each.

Among other stocks, Emkay Global tanked 10% after the company admitted an error on its part for the 900-point flash crash of the NSE index Nifty on Friday morning, and said it would help the stock exchange in probe into the matter.

Geometric Limited has rallied 5% to Rs 123 after the company said that Indian equity investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala acquired an additional 3.39% stake in the company via open market transactions.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE. 1389 stocks advanced while 1219 stocks declined.