Markets trade flat, banking shares slide

Markets continued to trade on a subdued note on back of profit booking in IT and banking shares. The Nifty was up 5 points, at 5,830 and the Sensex edged higher by 11 points, 19,466.

------------------------------Updated at 13:52 hrs

Market rally paused after eight consecutive days of gains on back of profit booking in banking shares. The Sensex was up 29 points, at 19,470 and the Nifty was up 1 point, at 5834.

Investors turned to the sidelines after the markets surged 9% and posted their highest gains in 21 months in the past week. Derivatives data continued to indicate positive market undercurrent. Shailesh Kadam, AVP, Institutional Derivatives from PINC Research said, "the percentage of rollovers seen during the March expiry were higher than that of the last three expiries. Additionally, the rollover cost increased as expiry neared which gave confidence that markets may consolidate at the current levels." Kadam said, the market trend is positive and Nifty may scale to 6000-6100 levels in the coming days.

Among the sectoral indices metal shares were shinning in trade today, besides gains in realty and FMCG stocks. From the metal pack, JSW Steel added 3.1%, Hindalco was up 2.3%, Bhushan Steel climbed 1.8%. Kadam said, " Metal shares are high beta stocks and generally they outperform the markets." Kadam expects 5-7% upmove in the metal pack.

Investors continued to book profits in banking shares after the rally seen in the past week, the BSE bankex index was down 0.7%. Punjab National Bank was off 3.2%, Bank of Baroda was down 1.5% and Union Bank declined 1.3%.

Broader markets were outperforming the benchmark first time after eight days, the midcap and the smallcap indices were up over 1% each.

Top gainers on the Sensex, Reliance Communication was up 3.3%, followed by Hindalco, up 2.3% and BHEL advanced 2.2%. Among the top losers were NTPC, down 2.1%, SBI fell 1.8% and ICICI Bank was off 1.2%.

Market breadth was positive, 1883 stocks advanced for 763 stocks which declined.