Markets continue to consolidate; Sensex near 24,300

Markets continued to consolidate as the sharp sell-off yesterday continued to weigh on market sentiment

Markets continued to consolidate on Friday, the first day of the June F&O series, as the sharp sell-off yesterday continued to weigh on market sentiment.

At 11:40AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 61 points at 24,295 up 61 points and 50-share Nifty was up 19 points at 7,255.

On Thursday, the Nifty posted its largest single-day decline in nearly four months and the Sensex recorded its highest fall since February 3 this year.

Investors rolled over fewer positions to the June derivatives series, signalling that they could have taken some risk off the table following sharp gains this month. The recent surge in equities had left very little scope for further gains in the market, said participants, who felt the upward trajectory of the indices could be capped in the coming month. The rollover percentage of Nifty futures in the May series onto the next month was 60 per cent, in line with the previous month expiry but lower than its three-month average of 65 per cent. Marketwide rollovers stood at 64.5 per cent as against the three-month average of 62.7 per cent.

The rupee was trading at Rs 59 against its previous close of 59.03/04, as dollar inflows from YES Bank's share sale for as much as $500 million aided the Indian unit's gains. However, month-end dollar demand from oil importers may limit the rise.

Asian shares which had risen in early trades tracking US markets trimmed most of their gains with only Hang Seng trading marginally higher. Hang Seng was up 0.3%, Shanghai gained 0.2% while Nikkei and Straits Times were down 0.1-0.3% each.

Realty index was the top gainer among the sectoral indices up 3% followed by Power, Oil and Gas, Metal, Healthcare among others.

Oil shares were among the top gainers with ONGC up 2.6% and index heavyweight Reliance Industries was up 1% on reports that it is taking majority stake in Network18.

Capital Goods shares which witnessed profit taking in the previous sessions rebounded to edge higher. L&T and BHEL were up nearly 2% each.

Other Sensex gainers include, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and NTPC.

HDFC Group shares witnessed profit taking with both HDFC and HDFC Bank down 0.7-1.7% each.

Tata Motors was down 1.4% after missing estimates by a huge margin, reporting a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,918 crore for the reporting quarter, a drop of 0.68% from Rs 3,945 crore in the same quarter last year. Analysts expected the net profit to be in the range of Rs 4,600 crore but due to a larger-than-expected erosion in profits at the stand-alone level, the overall performance got severely hit.

Among other shares, Shares of Indian Oil Corporation were up nearly 2% at Rs 360 on the BSE after posting 40% rise in net profit to Rs. 7019 crore for the year ended March 31, 2014 as compared to Rs. 5005 crore for the year ended March 31, 2013.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.8-1.2% each.

Market breadth was strong with 1,533 gainers and 931 losers.