IT stocks boot up amid lacklustre trades

Benchmark share indices continued to remain lacklustre as investors turned cautious on concerns that the weak monsoon would fuel inflationary pressures while the continuing crisis in Iraq also weighed on sentiment. However, IT stocks firmed up on the back of upbeat performance from Accenture Plc.

At 1:15PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 11 points at 25,052 and the 50-share Nifty was down 4 points at 7,489.

The Indian rupee was trading marginally higher at Rs 60.11 compared to its previous close of Rs 60.14, tracking weakness of the dollar against other Asian currencies.

Asian markets remained subdued on Friday with profit taking seen in Japanese shares. Japan's benchmark Nikkei ended down 1.4% at 15,095. Among other major indices in the region, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng were marginally down 0.05-0.1% each while Straits Times was trading 0.2% lower.

European shares firmed up today on the back of positive action seen in select stocks. The FTSE, CAC-40, DAX was up 0.1-0.2% each.

IT shares were up on the back of improving demand environment after Accenture Plc reported  better-than-expected revenue for the third quarter ended May 31, 2014 because of higher demand for its consulting services. TCS, Wipro and Infosys were up 0.8-3.6% each.

Investors also sought refuge in the defensive pharma space with Ranbaxy Laboratories that surged 5% to Rs 497 on reports that it has received the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA)'s approval to sell a generic version of Novartis's hypertension medicine, Diovan.

Dr Reddy's Labs was up 1.5% after the pharma major launched duloxetine delayed-release capsules USP 20 mg, 30 mg and 60 mg in the US market, the company said today. Sun Pharma was up 3.8%.

Top Sensex losers include, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel among others.

Meanwhile, Capital Goods and Auto shares which had firmed post the announcemen of extension of excise sops till December 31, 2014 witnessed profit taking at higher levels.

BHEL was down 3% and L&T slipped 0.3%. In the Auto segment, M&M, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors were down over 1% each.

Reliance Capital was up 1.4% to Rs 632.95 on BSE on a report that Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc may buy 10% stake in the Anil Ambani-owned  company by paying $400 million for new shares.

Shares of Tech Mahindra were up nearly 3% at Rs 2,098 after the company forged a strategic alliance with Finland-based Comptel and opened a Centre of Excellence at Pune to support communications service providers with their compled OSS/BSS transformation projects.

Havells India has surged 8% to Rs 1,192 ahead of board meeting on Monday to consider sub-division of equity shares of face value of Rs 10 a share to a lower denomination.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were trading flat with negative bias.

The market breadth was strong with 1,428 gainers and 1,321 losers on the BSE.