Sensex, Nifty trading flat; midcap, smallcap outshine

Benchmark indices have erased early gains and have turned flat with Sensex and Nifty swinging between negative and positive zone.

At 11:45AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 24 points at 28,196 and the 50-share Nifty was up 2 points at 8,433.

The broader markets are outperforming the benchmark indices- BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices have gained by nearly 1% each.

The market breadth in BSE remains firm with 1,587 shares advancing and 989 shares declining.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 656.37 crore yesterday as per provisional data.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that he is in touch with the various state governments and most of the contentious issues on the implementation of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) have already been resolved.

RUPEE

The rupee weakened to its lowest level in a little over a month on Tuesday morning as private oil firms bought dollars while a broadly stronger dollar also hurt sentiment for the local unit.

At 11:35, the partially convertible rupee was at 61.79 per dollar compared with its close of 61.73/74 on Monday. It touched 61.8550, its weakest level since Oct 16.

SECTORS & STOCKS

BSE Capital Goods, Metal and Power indices have gained over 1% each followed by counters like Auto, Banks, Healthcare and Oil & Gas, all rising between 0.4-1%. However, sectors like IT, FMCG, Consumer Durables and Realty are trading marginally negative.

The main gainers on the Sensex are Sesa Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, TPC, GAIL, Tata Steel, RIL, L&T and M&M.

Bharti Airtel is up nearly 3% as the company will not be affected once the 900MHz spectrum allocated in 1995 comes up for renewal as it smartly bought a lot of 1,800 MHz spectrum in February as insurance. So even if it fails to retain its 900 MHz spectrum, its services will not get disrupted: the subscribers can be migrated from one band to another.

On the losing side, HDFC, Cipla, HUL, Infosys and Tata Motors have declined between 1-2%.

Among other shares, Financial Technologies (FTIL) has gained above 5% to Rs 191.40 on BSE after the company announced that the board of its wholly owned subsidiary FT Group Investments.

Shares of sugar manufacturers are in demand and trading higher by up to 10% on the BSE on media reports that the government is likely to subsidise the production of ethanol for blending with petrol.

Bajaj Hindusthan is up 10%, Balrampur Chini Mills has jumped 10%, Dhampur Sugar has climbed 8% and Shree Renuka has surged nearly 9%.

Mangalam Cement has surged 4% to Rs 330 on National Stock Exchange (NSE) after India Capital Fund purchased 602,596 equity shares or 2.26% stake of the company through open market.

Moser Baer has gained around 5% to Rs 9.73 on BSE after winning contracts in rooftop solar panel installation scheme in states of Kerela, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.