Flat trades continue; TCS down 1.5%

Markets continued to trade flat as gains in FMCG shares helped offset losses in IT majors.

Markets continued to trade flat in the first hour of trade as gains in FMCG shares helped offset losses in IT majors.

At 10:15AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 6 points at 21,128 and the 50-share Nifty was up 1 points at 6,273.     

The Consumer Price Inflation for December fell sharply to 9.87% compared with 11.74% in November on account of decline in vegetable prices. Food inflation decreased to

Meanwhile, India's currency, debt and money markets will be closed today for a public holiday.

The partially convertible rupee closed on Monday at 61.55/56 per dollar compared with 61.89/90 on Friday.

In Asia, shares witnessed selling pressure on Tuesday, with Japanese stocks slipping over 2% after the yen appreciated to near four-week high against the dollar after weak US jobs report raised worries about the growth outlook in the world's largest economy.

Japan's Nikkei was down 2.4% after markets opened for trading on Tuesday. Japanese market was closed on Monday for a public holiday. Among others, the Hang Seng and Straits Times were down 0.2-0.4% while the Shanghai Composite was up 0.6%.

Capital Goods, Bankex and Metal indices were the top gainers among the sectoral indices on the BSE while IT index was the top loser.

Bank shares firmed up after on hopes that the sharp contraction in December consumer price inflation has made it easier for the Reserve Bank of India to maintain status quo on key policy rates. HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI were up 0.2-0.5% each.

FMCG shares ITC and Hindustan Unilever were up 0.2-0.7% each on hopes that the lower consumer price inflation would increase the spending power of consumers leading to higher volume growth.

Other gainers include, L&T and Reliance Industries.

IT majors TCS, Wipro and Infosys were down 0.3-1% each on profit taking after recent gains post better-than-expected third quarter earnings from Infosys.

Tata Motors which had also surged in the previous sessions on the back of robust sales from its UK-arm JLR also witnessed profit taking. The stock was down 1.3%.

Among other shares, CMC has tanked 8% at Rs 1,586 after reporting 4.8% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 70.54 crore for the third quarter ended December 2013 (Q3). The company had profit of Rs 67.31 crore in September quarter.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.1% and the Small-cap index was up 0.3%.

Market breadth was positive with 833 gainers and 656 losers on the BSE.