Flat trades continue, IT shares lead gains

Weakness persists in Oil & gas, healthcare and metal spaces in noon deals

Markets traded absolutely flat this afternoon with buying interest seen in IT and banking shares. In late noon deals, the Sensex was unchanged at 19,996. Nifty was up 3 points at 6,072.

Meanwhile, global risk appetite was positive after yet another record closing by the US markets, however, gains were capped on concerns over spike in China’s inflation which may prevent country’s central bank  from aggressive monetary policy easing. Asian markets traded mixed with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling 0.1% to 23,211. Shanghai Composite and Nikkei shed 0.6% each.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 976.99 crore on Wednesday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) will issue data on industrial production for March 2013 tomorrow.

The rupee fell by 10 paise to 54.26 per dollar in late morning trade today following demand for the US currency from importers despite its weakness overseas.

BSE IT index jumped 1% to 6,066 after upbeat results posted by Nasdaq-listed Cognizant improved growth prospects of Indian software makers as they get majority of business from clients in US and Europe.

Power, PSU and bankex added 04% each. Shares of most of the public sector undertaking (PSU) banks are trading higher by up to 5%, recouping their early morning losses, after Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India have seen their assets quality improvement on sequential basis. On the other hand, the healthcare index slipped 1% to 8,882. Oil & gas, metal and consumer durables also dipped in trades - down around half a per cent each.

SBI added 2.5% at Rs 2,311. From the IT space, TCS and Wipro have added 0.6-1.3% each. Hindalco, NTPOC and Larsen & Toubro added nearly 1% each as well. Magindra & Mahindra added 0.6% after the company announced the launch of the 'Bolero Maxi Truck Plus' on Tuesday.