Markets have a subdued session

The benchmark indices had a lacklustre session of trade. The Sensex languished in the red, trading in a narrow range of around 130 points, except for isolated and fleeting instances of foraying into the green territory. The Sensex finally ended at 19008, lower by 37 points and the Nifty ended at 5695, down 15 points. The midcap index, however, ended at 7192, higher by 16 points and the smallcap index ended at 8945, up 39 points.

The apparent stillness of the barometer indices, however, belied the hectic stock-specific activity below the surface, largely driven by result announcements by the likes of wipro, ITC and BHEL, and impending numbers from powerhouses such as RIL and SBI.

IT saw profit-booking after driving the recovery in the previous session and Wipro's lower-than-expected quarterly numbers and high-profile exit announcents seemed to have only hastened the process. the third largest information technology company was the top loser, shedding 4.5% at Rs 456, on the BSE after reporting a mere 10% rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,318 crore for the third quarter ended December 2010 compared with Rs 1,203 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Consolidated revenues jumped 12% to Rs 7,829 crore from Rs 6,977 crore a year earlier. Moreover, the company surprised markets with the resignations of the joint CEOs of its IT unit, including Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, effective January 31. And Infosys lost 1.3% at Rs 3245. TCS, however, closed flat, with a positive bias at Rs 1212.

Among the other major losers, ONGC shed 2.5% at Rs 1105 on detecting a leakage in a pipeline at its off-shore operations about 80 kilometres off the Mumbai coast. And ITC lost 1.6% at Rs 168 amid volatile trades despite reporting a jump of 21% in Q3 net at Rs 1,389 crore. Metal stocks fell as LMEX, a gauge of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, declined 1.72% on in overnight trades. Sterlite Industries, Jindal Steel and Sail shed 1-2% each, while Tata Steel lost 0.8%. Tata Steel's FPO was fully covered by midday on the last day of the offer, going by the stock exchange data, with most bids coming at the top end of the Rs 594-Rs 610 price band.

On the other hand, the likes of SBI and RIL saw buying interest ahead of their numbers scheduled over the weekend; SBI strengthened by 2.4% at Rs 2597 and RIL jumped 1.7% at Rs 986. And ICICI Bank, which was a standalone performer on Thursday, gained another 1.4% at Rs 1065. BHEL gainede 1.7% at Rs 2217 after beating Street expectations. The state-owned power equipment company reported a 31% jump in net profit to Rs 1,403 crore for Q3FY11 compared with Rs 1,073 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Analysts expected the company to post net profit of Rs 1,266 crore during the quarter.

On the global front, European shares were trading higher in mid-day trades as metals prices which bounced back after steep losses in the previous session on concerns about further monetary tightening in China. The key benchmark indices in France, Germany and UK rose around half a percent each. Asian stocks, however, slipped on worries that rising inflation may invite aggressive policy tightening and hurt growth in the world's engines such as China and India. The key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea fell up 1-2%. Wall Street had fallen for a second day on Thursday night as earnings failed to live up to lofty expectations. The Dow dropped 18 points to 11,806 and Nasdaq Composite Index lost 24 points at 2,701.

The market breadth was positive, though. Out of 2875 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1521 advancing stocks as against 1239 declines.