Markets continued to trade flat with negative bias in late noon trades on Monday weighed down by profit taking in IT majors after recent gains and ITC.
At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 90 points at 20,792 and the 50-share Nifty was down 18 points at 6,172.
The rupee weakened in afternoon trades due to dollar demand by importers.
At 2:30 pm the rupee was trading at Rs 61.44 compared with previous close of Rs 61.27 per dollar.
Asian shares firmed up on Monday, tracking bullish trend on Wall Street, on expectations that the US Fed would postpone its monetary stimulus measures following the recent government shutdown. Tokyo's Nikkei gained 0.9%, Shanghai Composite was up 1.6%, Hang Seng rose 0.4% and Straits Times gained 0.2%.
BSE FMCG index was the top loser among the sectoral indices on the BSE down 1.3% followed by IT and Healthcare.
Capital Goods index was the top gainer up 4.2% followed by Realty, Metal, Power, Auto and Bankex up 1-3% each.
Engineering major L&T was up 6.3%, extending its Friday’s over 4% rally, after construction and engineering giant has reported a good set of numbers for the quarter ended September 2013 (Q2).
Index heavyweight Reliance Ind was up 0.5%. Other Sensex gainers include, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki, SBI and Tata Motors.
ITC was down 2.6% while HDFC and HDFC Bank slipped nearly 1% each. HDFC today posted a net profit after tax of Rs 1,266 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2013 as compared to Rs 1,151 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2012.
Total income increased from Rs 5,277 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 to Rs 5,954 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2013.
IT majors Infosys and TCS were down 0.4-1% each amid profit booking at higher levels after recent gains following better-than-expected second quarter earnings.
Among other shares, Alstom T&D India has surged 3.1% after the company announced that it will supply transformers for NTPC's supercritical nabinagar power project.
Pratibha Industries surged 5.36% to Rs 23.60 at 12:32 IST on BSE after the company said it has secured an order worth Rs 321.88 crore from PHED (Ajmer), Rajasthan
The BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.7% and Small-cap index rose 1.1%.
Market breadth was strong with 1,316 gainers and 986 losers on the BSE.
