| Markets open on a flat note | |
| SI Reporter / Mumbai Feb 14, 2012, 09:37 | | | | | |
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The Indian markets have opened absolutely flat tracking global cues. The Sensex is down 19 points at 17,791.
Markets will be looking at the inflation number due later today for direction.
US stocks rose on Monday, after Greece's parliament approved reforms needed to qualify for a bailout and avoid an unruly default. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 72.81 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 12,874.04. The S&P 500 Index gained 9.12 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 1,351.76.
Rating agency Moody's warned on Monday it may cut ratings of France, the United Kingdom and Austria, while it downgraded the ratings of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta.
IT shares have dropped in morning trades with the BSE IT index down 0.3% at 6,016. BSE healthcare, power and oil & gas are the other top losers among sectoral indices.
SBI has gained 3% at Rs 2,192 in morning trades after reporting a good set of numbers on Monday. The bank reported a 15.3% jump in standalone net profit at Rs 3,263 crore for the third quarter ended December 2011 as compared to Rs 2,828.1 crore in the same period a year ago.
Net interest income too increased 26.6% to Rs 11,463 crore from Rs 9,050 crore in December 2010.
From the auto space, Tata Motors has added 2%, followed by Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp.
DLF, GAIL, Coal India have advanced in trades as well.
Meanwhile, Infosys is the biggest dragger and is down 0.5% at Rs 2,769. Cipla has tumbled 4% to Rs 329 in spite of a 16% jump in Q3 net at Rs 267 crore.
Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Tata Power and HDFC Bank are in the red.
Among individual stocks, Jain Irrigation Systems reported a 98 per cent drop in its December quarter net to 1.24 crore on account of foreign exchange loss. The stock is up half a per cent at Rs 96.
The government is moving ahead with plans of disinvestment in blue-chips ONGC and BHEL through the auction route to raise about Rs 14,500 crore within the current fiscal itself. BHEL is up 0.5% at Rs 262 while ONGC has slipped 0.8% at Rs 278.
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