Sensex edges up; September-quarter results in focus

REUTERS - Indian shares rose marginally on Monday, swinging between gains and losses and tracking muted Asian peers, as investors remained cautious ahead of a key week for quarterly results for companies such as HDFC Bank and Axis Bank .

The broader NSE Nifty was trading 0.05 percent higher at 8,697.40 as of 0557 GMT, after falling as much as 0.1 percent earlier in the session.

The benchmark BSE Sensex was up 0.13 percent at 28,113.85.

"I expect the market to be range-bound between 8,300-8,900 points," said R.K. Gupta, managing director of Taurus Asset Management.

"It could be difficult to break the resistance at 8,900 as results of IT companies and Reliance Industries has shown that earnings this quarter may be sluggish."

 

Bank stocks such as Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda rose more than 2 percent, with the Nifty Bank index extending gains from last week.

IT services and consulting company Mindtree Ltd lost as much as 5.7 percent after posting a 37 percent fall in consolidated profit for the September quarter on Friday.

Wipro Ltd dropped as much as 4.3 percent after the company said it expected modest growth in revenue from its IT services business for the December-quarter despite the acquisition of U.S.-based cloud services company Appirio.

Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular fell as much as 1.76 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, after India's telecoms regulator imposed a $455 million fine on the companies, saying they were denying rival Reliance Jio sufficient interconnection points.

Idea Cellular is scheduled to report September-quarter results later in the day.

In Asia, stocks drifted without clear direction on Monday after Wall Street's sluggish performance late last week, as fresh comments from a Federal Reserve official boosted bets of a rate hike by year-end.

(Reporting by Arnab Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)