Markets remain flat amid range bound trade

Markets flat in noon trades tracking weak Asian cues

Benchmark share indices continued to trade flat in noon trades on Tuesday tracking weak Asian cues with the Nifty find tough resistance above 6,200.

At 1PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 25 points at 20,876 and the 50-share Nifty was up 7 points at 6,190.

The rupee continued to stregthen against the dollar on regional cues while the benchmark 10-year bond yield eased after the announcement of the new 10-year bonds.

At 1PM, the rupee was quoting at 62.14 versus its Monday close of 62.41/42. It is seen in a range of 61.80 to 62.50 for the session, traders said.

Asian markets witnessed profit taking after sharp gains in the Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite on MOnday. The Shanghai COmposite was down 0.3%, Hang Seng slipped 0.1%, the Nikkei and Straits Times eased 0.3% each.

" Markets expected to remain flat today. This is actually likely to transform into a range trading pattern with the Nifty moving between 6000-6300 with futures premium relative to spot declining as settlement comes closer. A breakout above 6350 would be a strong positive signal. Given that, we have congestion zones at roughly 50-pt intervals at 6000, 6050, 6100, 6150 etc. So a trader can use those as support-resistance markers and set stop losses accordingly," Says technical analyst,Devangshu Datta.

The BSE Realty Index continued to remain the top sectoral gainer up 1.1% followed by Capital Goodss, Auto, Bankex, Oil and Gas indices. FMCG Index was the top loser down 0.5% followed by Consumer Durables, Metal, Healthcare and Power indices.

IT major Infosys was up nearly 1% contributing the most to the Sensex gains followed by State Bank of India, L&T and Index heavyweight Reliance Industries.

Bharti Airtel was up 1.4% on reports of sale of its tower business in Africa.

Other Sensex gainers include, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki and HDFC

HDFC Bank, TCS and ITC were among the top Sensex losers.

Among other shares, Shalimar Paints has rallied nearly 15% at Rs 96 on back of heavy volumes on the bourses. The stock opened at Rs 82.70 on BSE and has seen over two-fold jump in trading volumes. Over 1.5 million shares were traded so far on both stock exchanges against an average 500,000 shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on BSE and NSE.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap was up 0.2% and the Small-cap index was marginally up with positive bias.

Market breadth was nearly neutral with 1,087 gainers and 1,058 losers on the BSE.