Markets in consolidation mode; Nifty hovers near 8,550

Markets continued to consolidate in late morning trades as gains in financials and pharma helped offset losses in oil and gas shares. Meanwhile, trading activity is likely to pick up pace in the latter half of the trading session ahead of the expiry of March derivative contracts tomorrow.

At 11:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 32 points at 28,194 and the 50-share Nifty was up 7 points at 8,550.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities worth Rs 738 crore as per provisional stock exchange data.

The Indian rupee was trading marginally lower at 62.30 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of 62.26 after the greenback appreciated against overseas currencies.

LEADERS & LAGGARDS

BSE Healthcare, Auto, FMCG and Bankex were among the top gainers while Capital Goods, Metal, Power, Oil and Gas indices were among the sectoral losers.

Mortgage lender HDFC was up 1.4%. The stock was quoted ex-dividend today. The board had announced an interim dividend of Rs 2 per equity share and fixed March 26, 2015 as the record date.

Private banks were also among the top gainers with ICICI Bank, Axis Bank up 1% each while HDFC Bank was up 0.4%.

Sun Pharma extended gains and was up nearly 2% after the company in a release said that all received from the respective Hon’ble High Courts have been filed in E-Forms INC-28 by Ranbaxy and Sun Pharma with the respective Registrar of Companies on March 24, 2015 and with these filings the merger of Ranbaxy into Sun Pharma has been consummated. Ranbaxy Laboratories was up 1.6%.

Among other pharma shares, Dr Reddy's Labs and Cipla were up 0.7-1.3% each.

Tata Motors was up 1.8% ahead of its board meet today for the proposed rights issue to raise up to Rs 7,500 crore and buyback of secured NCDs worth Rs 1,250 crore maturing on March 31, 2016.

Oil and gas shares continued to trade lower with Reliance Industries, ONGC and GAIL down 0.6-2.6% each.

Most metal shares continue to trade weak after a private survey yesterday showed that China's factory sector declined to 11-month low to 49.2 in March. Jindal Steel, Coal India, Tata Steel and Hindalco are down 0.7-1.4% each.

Sesa Sterlite was down 0.8%. The company today said that it would increase production at its copper smelting plant Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu by 12% to 370,000 metric tonnes on April 1, 2015. Post expansion, the plant would be one of the largest copper smelting plants in Asia.

Capital goods shares were trading lower after a release from the Annual Survey of Industries showed that net industrial growth grew at the slowest pace in a decade in 2012-13 at 1.8%. L&T and BHEL were down 1.2% each.

Among other shares, Hindustan Construction Company was up over 5% after the company said it has secured an arbitration award of Rs 217.18 crore for the extension of time (EOT) cost claim in Lucknow-Muzaffarpur National Highway Project – package IV.

In the broader markets, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were trading flat with negative bias.

Market breadth was weak with 1,428 losers and 908 gainers on the BSE.