Markets languish in noon trades

IT, Auto shares buck trends

Markets continued to languish in afternoon deals with noticeable selling pressure in capital goods, power and metal shares. The BSE Sensex has slipped 130 points at 18,365. Nifty is trading down 41 points at 5,559.

BSE capital goods index has slipped 2% to 10,313. Power, metal, oil & gas and realty indices have slipped 1-1.5% each. Meanwhile, BSE IT index has maneged to hold on to gains and is up 0.5% at 6,005. This follows the rupee's  28 paise fall at 54.29 a dollar on demand for the American currency from banks and importers, political crisis after a key ally Trinamool Congress withdrew support to the UPA government.

Broader markets have also dropped in line with the benchmark index. BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices have slipped 0.5% each at 6,340 amd 6,713, respectively.

Maruti Suzuzki is up 1.6% at Rs 1,296. TCS, Bharti Airtel, Jindal Steel and Tata Motors have added 1% each in trades. NTPC is down 1% at Rs 165, in spite of reports that the Finance Ministry has proposed a 9.5% stake sale in the company and it eyes Rs 13168 crore from this divestment.

"Tata Motors has moved well from lower levels, but Call writing at 290 and 300 strike are putting pressure on stock. Till the time it holds above 265, bias would be positive but below that cautionis advised for a dip towards 257-255 levels," said Chandan Taparia, Derivative Analyst, Anand Rathi Financial Services.

On the other hand, Gail India has slipped 4% to Rs 373. BHEL is down 3%, followed by Sterlite, HDFC and Larsen & TOubro. Heavyweights - Reliance and ICICI Bank have shed 1.5% each and are responsible for a 53 points fall on the Sensex.

HCL Technologies is up 0.6% at Rs 575 after the company said it entered into a landmark five year, multi-million dollar deal with Freescale Semiconductor, a global leader in embedded processing solutions.

Shares of EID Parry were up 1.4% at Rs 230 after the company informed that it has scheduled a meeting on October 11 to demerger the company's sugar subsidiary, Parrys Sugar Industries Ltd.

BSE market breadth is negative. Out of 2,651 stocks traded, 1,034 shares have  advanced while 1,494 shares have declined.