Markets turn choppy; Pharma shares drag

Markets turned choppy weighed down by pharma shares with Sun Pharma leading the decline after Japan's Daiichi Sankyo sold its stake in the Indian pharma major through multiple block deals on the stock exchanges today.

At 10:15AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 71 points at 27,815 and the 50-share Nifty was down 30 points at 8,418.
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(Updated at 9:40AM)
Markets trimmed early losses as gains in ITC and financials helped offset some of the losses in Sun Pharmaceuticals which slumped over 10% after Daiichi Sankyo plans to sell its stake in the Indian pharma major.

At 9:40AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 16 points at 27,870 and the 50-share Nifty was down 12 points at 8,436.

Going ahead, analysts expect the negative momentum to continue as the market breadth continues to deteriorate and the large-cap stocks too not showing any signs of strength.

"Nifty has closed in the vicinity of support range of 8450 - 8400 and hence minor pullback rallies shall not be ruled out, however any such moves will be an opportunity to create fresh short positions. The immediate resistance zone for Nifty is seen around 8500-8550 whereas support is placed around 8400 levels," said technical analysts at Angel Broking in a morning note.

Sectors & Stocks

BSE Healthcare index was the top loser down 2.6% along with IT index which was tradig 0.7% lower. Metal, Consumer Durables, Power, Capital Goods, Oil and Gas were among the top gainers.

HCL Technologies fell further and was down 10% amid weak third quarter earnings. The IT major today reported a 12% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1,683 crore for the third quarter ended March 2015 (Q3FY15). Consolidated revenues too declined marginally by 0.2% at Rs 9,267 crore on QoQ basis.

Sun Pharmaceuticals was down 10% on reports that Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo plans to sell its 8.9% stake in Sun Pharmaceuticals worth Rs 22,610. The sale is likely  via block deals today, media reports suggest. Till 0934 hours, a combined 241.45 million shares representing 11.66% of total equity of Sun Pharma have changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE

ITC was the top gainer up 1.6% while among the banking space, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were the top gainers.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries rebounded to trade 0.5% higher after dropping over 4% in the previous session. ONGC was up 0.8%.

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

Market breadth was strong with 904 gainers and 640 losers on the BSE.

Global Markets

US stocks ended higher on Monday after China's measures to boost its economy and ahead of earnings from information technology majors. China's central bank announced cut in the reserve-ratio rate of banks in an effort to improve liquidity in the system and boost economic growth. The Dow Jones ended up 210 points at 18,035.82, the S&P 500 ended up 19 points at 2,100.02 and the tech-laden Nasdaq ended 60 points higher at 4,992.

Asian stocks were trading higher with shares in Japan gaining the most. The benchmark Nikkei was up over 1% led by exporter stocks such as Toyota and National Panasonic. China's benchmark Shanghai Composite was up 0.9% while Hang Seng surged 2% and Singapore's Straits Times was trading with marginal gains.