Markets consolidate; Coal India up 3%

Losses in Bharti Airtel, ITC, Tata Motors and TCS keep gains under check

Benchmark indices remained in the negative territory amidst volatile trading session in the noon deals. Selling in heavyweights like Bharti Airtel, ITC, Tata Motors and TCS weighed on the indices. At 1415 hrs, the Sensex was d own 18 points at 21,271 and the Nifty was flat with positive bias at 6,323.

Broader markets too were extremely flat with the smallcap at 6598 and the midcap index was flat with a positive bias at 6584.

Rupee

The rupee edged up to 61.52/53 versus its previous close of 61.54/55, as debt-related dollar inflows and comments from Moody's helped the unit. Traders said comments from a Moody's analyst saying India was unlikely to be downgraded also helped the rupee.

Sectors and Stocks

Auto, Teck, FMCG and Health Care indices were down 0.3-0.8% while Bankex and Consumer Durables were flat with a negative bias.

Metal index up nearly 2% was the top sectoral gainer followed by Capital Goods, Realty, Power and IT indices which gained 0.2-0.6%.

The losers among the Sensex-30 were Bharti Airtel down 4%, Tata Motors, ONGC, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Mahindra & Mahindra down 1-2%.

ITC, TCS, ICICI Bank, Dr Reddys Lab, HDFC Bank, SBI and Tata Power which slipped 0.2-0.6% were the other notable losers.

Among the ones in the green were Coal India, BHEL, Tata Steel, Hindalco, Sesa Sterlite, Wipro, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC and NTPC up 1-3%.

The market breadth was negative on the BSE. 1471 stocks declined while 1107 stocks advanced.

Global Markets

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei average edged down on Thursday, erasing earlier gains on profit-taking as investors wanted to see more U.S. economic data before chasing the market higher. The Nikkei ended 0.4 percent lower at 15,747.20, after rising as high as 15,941.08 in earlier trade.

The Hang Seng Index ended up 0.4 percent at 22,986.4 points while China share indexes stayed broadly flat on Thursday, with strength in non-banking financials balanced by weak banking counters, while profit-taking knocked an index of small cap stocks off a record high.

The CSI300 of the biggest Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listings ended up 0.1 percent at 2,211.8 points. The Shanghai Composite Index finished flat as volumes stayed lackluster.

European shares too were in the negative with all the major indices like CAC, DAX and FTSE down 0.02-0.2%.