Heavyweights drag markets lower; Nifty at 8,130

ICICI Bank, Infosys, ONGC and L&T among the top losers

Markets continue to trade in the negative territory as weakness in heavyweights like ICICI Bank, Infosys, ONGC and L&T weighed on the indices in noon trades.

At 1320 hrs, the Sensex was down 116 points at 27,204 and the Nifty slipped by 40 points to trade at 8,134.

In the broader markets, the smallcap index was unchanged while the midcap index bucked the larger market trend and was up 0.3%.

Auto, Consumer Durables, FMCG and Power indices up 0.2-0.4% were the only sectoral indices in green.

IT, Oil & Gas and Realty indices down 1% each were the major sectoral losers.

 Cipla, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors up 1% each were the prominent gainers of the hour. Cipla climbed after the company on Monday announced commercial collaboration with UK-based S&D Pharma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Coal India, Dr Reddys, M&M, Tata Power and ITC which added 0.3-0.7% rounded off the gainers list.

Tata Motors gained after the company launched the special edition Land Rover Freelander 2. The premium SUV carries a price tag of Rs. 44.41 lakh.

Among the major losers were ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Sesa Sterlite, L&T and BHEL down 1-2% were the major names in red.

Share prices of five new entrants to the future and options (F&O) segment gained on Tuesday despite the benchmark indices trading weak. The five stocks gained an average 2%.

Eicher Motors gained over a percent; Motherson Sumi added about 2.3%; SKS Microfinance gained 2.5%, Mindree was up 0.26% and TVS Motor gained nearly 3%.

The market breadth was marginally in green on BSE. 1462 stocks advanced while 1366 stocks declined.