Markets end flat; Nifty ends below 8,350

Provisionally, the Sensex gained 34 points to end at 27,565, while the Nifty ended unchanged at 8,338.

Gail, ONGC and Coal India gained about 2% each, while Tata Motors, M&M and Sun Pharma were among the major losers.

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(updated at 3.30 PM)

Markets have turned flat but continue to trade in the negative territory owing to disappointing quarterly numbers posted by select blue chips amid concern surrounding US interest rate hike after US reported better than expected US economic data.

Meanwhile, caution prevailed on the bourses as investors remain wary ahead of tomorrow’s May Futures & Options (F&O) expiry.

However, a smart rally in the banking stocks on hopes of rate cut by the RBI has limited the losses.

By 2.35 PM, the Sensex is lower by 13 points at 27,519 and the Nifty slipped by 17 points at 8,323.

In the broader market, BSE Midcap index is down 0.2% while BSE Smallcap indes is flat with a negative bias.The market breadth is weak, with 1,422 declines against 1,091 advances on the BSE.

RUPEE

Continuing its weakness for the third straight day, the rupee dropped below the 64 mark, falling 18 paise to 64.16 against the dollar in early trade on Wednesday, at the Interbank Foreign Exchange.

KEY STOCKS

On the sectoral front, BSE Auto, Teck, IT indices are trading lower up to 2%. However, BSE Bankex, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas indices are trading higher up to 1%.

Vedanta Resources Plc will aim to lift a court-imposed cap on its iron ore output in Goa, the country's top state for exporting the commodity, as it prepares to resume mining there in October after a three-year lull. The stock is down over 1%.

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, 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. Following the tandem, Infosys and Wipro have slipped between 1-2% each.

GAIL has declined over 1.4% on caution ahead of its quarterly numbers today.

The Reserve Bank of India is likely to cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.25 per cent when it meets early next week and make a similar move before December, according to the results of a Reuters poll. Tracking the positive news, banking stocks and realty shares are gaining in today’s trade. Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are up between 0.5-2%.

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 3%.

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.