Markets pare gains as IT heavyweights drag

Wipro and Infosys down 10% and 1% respectively among the top IT losers

Markets pared most of its opening gains as weakness in Reliance Industries and IT heavyweights weighed on the indices. At 1030 hrs, the Sensex was marginally up two points at 18,440 while the Nifty managed to retain some of its gains, with the index up 16 points at 5.558.

Among individual stocks, Cairn india gained 3% after the company struck fresh oil at its Rajasthan block.

Maharashtra Seamless has rallied as much as 10% to Rs 236 after its board approved Rs 100 crore share buyback at a maximum price of Rs 300 per share through the open market.

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(Updated at 0929 hrs)

Markets opened on a positive note with both the benchmark indices starting 0.5% higher. The Sensex started up 74 points at 18,513 and the Nifty gained 34 points to start at 5,577. The ones leading the opening gains were heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ITC and financials.

The broader markets too had a strong start with the midcap and the smallcap indices adding 0.6-0.8%.

Overnight in the US markets, Stocks ended a volatile session higher on Monday as investors looked ahead to an earnings season expected to show modest growth despite concerns about the economy's health.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.33%, to 14,613 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.63%, to 1,563. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.57%, to close at 3,222.

In Asia, the yen fell to new multi-year lows on Tuesday, pressured by the Bank of Japan's aggressive reflationary campaign, while Asian equities looked for support from a solid start to the U.S. quarterly earnings season.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside was up 0.1% in early trade. South Korean shares opened nearly flat, pressured by tensions in the Korean peninsula.

Japan's Nikkei stock average opened up 0.9%, after jumping as much as 3.1% to its highest since August 2008 earlier on Monday.

Back home, all the sectoral indices, except IT index, started in the green with Realty, Capital Goods, Metal and Auto indices gaining 1% each.

However, the IT index slipped 0.8%, due to weakness in names like Wipro and Infosys which slipped 7% and 0.6% respectively.

Wipro dropped after the company turned ex-scheme of arrangement today. In November last year, the Wipro board approved demerger of the non-IT businesses Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering and Medical Diagnostic Product & Services into a privately held company to be named 'Wipro Enterprises Ltd'.

The only other stocks in the negative among the Sensex-30 were Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddys Lab, Bajaj Auto, Sun Pharma and Hindustan Unilever down 0.3-1.6%.

On the gaining side were ICICI Bank and Tata Motors up nearly 2% each followed by metal names like Sterlite, Jindal Steel, Hindalco and Tata Steel gaining 1-1.5%.

HDFC, SBI, NTPC, L&T, BHEL and Hero MotoCorp up 0.7-1% were the other notable gainers.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE as 684 stocks advanced while 199 stocks declined.