Markets continued to trade on a lacklustre note in late morning deals with the Sensex up 18 points at 17,411 and Nifty up eight points at 5,308.
Asian markets traded on a lacklustre fashion following cues from Wall Street. Japan's Nikkei dropped 1% to 9,576. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite have added marginally in trades.
BSE auto index is up 1% at 10,655. Healthcare and IT shares are in the green. However, weakness can be seen in capital goods, realty, power and banking indices.
HDFC Bank is the top contributor to the Sensex this moment. The stock is up 1.4% at Rs 544. Auto shares are in green. Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki have added around 2% each. Tata Motors has entered the elite club of companies with Rs one trillion market value on the back of strong global sales for the month of March, joining Reliance Industries, ONGC, Coal India and TCS. Tata Power, Coal India and Sun Pharma are up 1% each. Infosys has advanced 1% to Rs 2,398.
Meanwhile, BHEL has dropped 2.7% to Rs 254. Hindalco, ICICI Bank and Larsen & Toubro are down over 1% each. Among other losers are SBI, Sterlite and Gail India.
Market heavyweight, Reliance is down 0.3% at Rs 747 ahead of its results on Friday.
"Reliance is too trading sideways, it seeks important resistance at 770 levels, sustaining above which it may gain momentum towards 815-820 levels, whereas on the downside, important support is seen around 733 levels, breaking below which selling can be seen in the stock and can drag towards 700-695 levels," says Ashish Chaturmohta, Vice President ( Derivatives & Technical Analyst), IIFL Wealth.
Among individual stocks, Koutons Retail India has plunged 10% to Rs 10.90, its all-time low, after the National Stock Exchange said that the equity shares of the company will be suspended from trading w.e.f. April 26, 2012 for non- compliance with certain provisions of the Listing Agreement.
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