Markets open on a soft note

Bharti, ITC and RIL shed

The markets has opened lower in trade today tracking negative global cues. The Sensex is down 23 points a 17,075. Nifty is down five points at 5,195.

US stocks fell on Monday as political turmoil in Europe cast doubts on the euro zone's ability to push through measures to end its debt crisis and as Wal-Mart sank following a report it stymied a bribery probe.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index around slipped 0.8 per cent each.

Asian markets were also impacted by the negative sentiment with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipping 0.2 percent while Japan's Nikkei average opened down 0.8 percent.

BSE IT index has gained 2.5% to 5,429 in early trades, buoyed by TCS. Realty ad bankex are also up half a per cent each. However, some weakness can be witnessed in oil & gas and FMCG indices.

TCS is the top gainer - up 9% at Rs 1,155. Wipro has taken cue from TCS and surged 2.2% to Rs 433. TCS reported better-than-expected a 3.28% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) rise in net profit at Rs 2,895 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012. Analysts expected the company to report a net profit of Rs 2,861 crore in the recently concluded quarter. TCS had reported a net profit of Rs 2,803 crore in the previous quarter.

Hindalco, Tata Power, SBI and Cipla are in the green.

However, Bharti Airtel has slumped 5.6% to Rs 295 in early trades. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed a high reserve price for telecom spectrum to be auctioned, at nearly Rs 3,622 crore per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band for GSM services.

Maruti Suzuki, Infosys, Reliance have also slipped over 1% in early trades.

Among individual stocks, FMCG major Nestle India could face an additional tax burden of Rs 100 crore this year due to increased rate of taxation. The stock has maanged to hold on to gains and is up 0.6% at Rs 4,915.