Markets off day lows, IT gains

Strength in names like TCS, Sesa Sterlite and ONGC aided the upmove

Markets recovered from the lows of the day in noon deals on account of strength in names like TCS, Sesa Sterlite and ONGC. At 1420 hrs, the Sensex was down 20 points at 20,709 and the Nifty was down nine points at 6,165.

Earlier in the day, the Sensex had touched a low of 20,652 and the Nifty had dropped to 6,148 in intra-day trades.

Meanwhile, the broader markets reeled under selling pressure after several days of outperformance. The midcap index gave off 0.7% and the smallcap index was down 0.6%, both underperforming the Sensex which was down 0.05%.

Among the sectoral indices, Power, Oil & Gas, Metal, Consumer Durables, IT, Teck and Health Care indices were in the positive territory, up 0.2-0.7%.

On the other hand, Realty and Capital Goods indices were down nearly 2% each along with Bankex, Auto and FMCG indices losing 0.6-0.7%.

The top gainers among in Sensex-30 were Sesa Sterlite up 3% followed by NTPC, ONGC, Coal India and Dr Reddys Lab up 2-3%.

Tata Power, Sun Pharma, TCS, Infosys, Hero MotoCorp and RIL added 0.2-1%.

Hindalco, L&T, Axis Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors down 1-2.3% were the top losers in noon deals.

Hindustan Unilever, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Bajaj Auto, Gail India and Tata Steel down 0.4-0.7% were the other major losers.

The market breadth was negative. 1,353 stocks declined while 1,063 stocks advanced on the BSE.

Global Markets

Asian shares wavered on Thursday after a lacklustre performance on Wall Street overnight and ahead of a key U.S. jobs report due out the following day, while the dollar hovered near a seven-week high against a basket of currencies.

Market reaction was muted to a slowdown in China's annual consumer inflation in December, which decelerated to 2.5 percent from the previous month's 3 percent, more than the market had expected.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.4 percent after snapping a five-day losing streak on Wednesday.

Despite the yen's weakness, Japan's Nikkei benchmark shed 1.5 percent, giving up some of its 1.9 percent bounce in the previous session after losing nearly 3 percent in the first two trading days of 2014.

Following the weak global cues, European markets started in the negative. CAC, DAX and FTSE were down 0.1-0.4%.