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Benchmark indices continue to trade in a narrow range with negative bias weighed down by IT and auto shares. However, buying among oil and financial shares has limited the losses.
By 11:25, the Sensex was lower by 63 points at 27,468 and the Nifty slipped by 28 points at 8,312.
The broader markets are also witnessing flat trades with a negative bias- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are down 0.1% each. The market breadth is negative, with 1,102 declines against 956 advances on the BSE.
Further, investors are maintaining cautious stance ahead of May F&O expiry, which is due tomorrow.
On the currency front, continuing its weakness for the third straight day, the rupee dropped below the 64 mark, falling 17 paise, to quote at 64.15 against the dollar today at the Interbank Foreign Exchange as the American currency firmed up overseas on strong economic data.
RESULTS CALENDAR
Aban Offshore, Bata India, Engineers India, GAIL (India), Jindal Steel, Reliance Infra, Tata Comm and TTK Prestige will declare their Q4 results today.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian stocks sagged and the dollar stood tall on Wednesday on growing prospects the Federal Reserve was on track to raise interest rates later this year and concerns that financial woes could engulf Spain in addition to Greece.
Spreadbetters expected a modestly higher open for Britain's FTSE, Germany's DAX and France's CAC following the previous day's declines.
Taking a lead from Wall Street's slide, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.8%. Shares in Australia dropped 0.8%, South Korea fell 1.7%, Hong Kong eased 0.6%, while Tokyo's Nikkei bucked the trend and rose 0.3%.
SECTORS & BUZZING STOCKS
BSE IT and Auto indices have plunged by almost 2%. However, sectors such as Consumer Durables, Banks, Oil & Gas and Realty have gained 0.6-1.2% each.
Tata Motors is the top Sensex loser, down over 5% after the company reported lower-than-expected consolidated net profit at Rs 1,717 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2015 (Q4) on account of lower-than-expected operating performance at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and mark-to-market (MTM) loss provisioning at JLR (on commodity hedges and revaluation of foreign currency debt).
Meanwhile, Tata Motors is set to get its annual dividend of 150 million pounds (Rs 1,500cr) from Jaguar Land Rover.
In the IT space, Infosys and Wipro have slipped 1-2% each.
GAIL has declined over 1% ahead of its quarterly numbers today.
Mahindra and Mahindra, which entered the two-wheeler business six years ago, will intensify marketing efforts to grow its market share by five-fold to about 5%. The stock has slipped by 1%.
Other notable losers are Hindalco, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma and Tata Power.
On the gaining side, Axis Bank has surged by over 1.5%. Among other financial shares, HDFC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI have gained by 0.3%.
After close to doubling their headcount in the past few years, leading private sector lenders ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have reduced their employee counts.
Further, according to the results of a Reuters poll, the Reserve Bank of India is likely to cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.25% when it meets early next week and make a similar move before December.
BHEL has gained over 1%. Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), the country’s largest power equipment manufacturer, has posted a 52% drop in net profit during the fourth quarter ended March on slowdown in project execution.
Among other shares, IDBI Bank has rallied 6% to Rs 71 on the NSE in an otherwise subdued market after the public sector lender reported an improvement in its asset quality for the January-March quarter (Q4) on a sequential basis.
Shares of Tech Mahindra have tanked 13.4% to Rs 554, the sharpest intra-day fall since February 2011 on the NSE, after the company reported a nearly 500 basis points (bps) decline in EBITDA margins at 15.2% for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2015 (Q4) against 20.2% in the December 2014 quarter.
