Markets continue to remain weak, IT weighs

Sharp sell off in Infosys along with TCS and Wipro continue to drag markets.

Markets were down over 1% in late morning trades amid a sharp sell off in Infosys after the IT major reported disappointing Q4 numbers and lower-than-expected guidance for FY14. Meanwhile, the Index of Industrial Production for February stood at 0.6%.

At 11:18AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 242 points or 1.3% at 18,301 and the 50-share Nifty was down 55 points or 1% at 5,539.

Asian shares were trading mixed with Nikkei recovering from its early lows. The Nikkei had rallied in the past few sessions after the Bank of Japan decided to infuse $1.4 trillion to boost the economy. The Nikkei was down 0.6% and Shanghai Composite slipped 0.2% while Hang Seng and Straits Times were trading with marginal gains.

Among the sectoral indices on the BSE, the IT index was down nearly 10% followed by Realty, Consumer Durables and Auto. However, FMCG, Oil and gas indices were among the gainers.

Shares of information technology (IT) companies are trading lower 2-18% after Infosys said its consolidated revenues are expected to grow between 6-10%, a much below than Nasscom’s 12-14% industry growth expectations for the current fiscal 2013-14 (FY13-14). Infosys slumped 18%, Wipro slipped 5% and TCS was down 2.2%.

Auto majors such as Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors which had gained recently witnessed profit taking and were down 0.3-0.9% each. However, defensive shares bucked the weak trend with FMCG shares among the top gainers. ITC was up 2.7% at Rs 293 and Hindustan Unilever was up 1.2% at Rs 477.

Among other shares, Tilaknagar Industries has rallied 9% to Rs 63 on buzz of merger of Allied Blenders & Distillers (ABD) with itself. ABD owns the top selling Indian whiskey brand Officer's Choice.

Lupin is trading nearly 2% up in an otherwise weak market after foreign institutional investors (FIIs) holding in the pharma major touched a historic high.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were down 0.3-0.5% each.

Market breadth was weak with 1,073 gainers and 665 losers on the BSE.