Oil & gas stocks drop

Key benchmark indices extended fall and hit fresh intraday low in morning trade. At 10:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 209.13 points or 0.62% at 33,476.41. The Nifty 50 index was down 56.05 points or 0.54% at 10,304.10. Oil & gas stocks dropped. Telecom stocks saw mixed trend.

Trading for the day began on a dull note as the key benchmark indices edged lower in early trade on negative Asian stocks.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.09%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.27%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1,189 shares rose and 868 shares fell. A total of 104 shares were unchanged. Breadth was strong in early trade.

Overseas, Asian stocks fell as weak volumes in the US session overnight gave little impetus for traders ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting. US stocks ended mixed yesterday, 15 March 2018 as industrial and tech gains were offset by losses in the consumer and energy sector.

Back home, Tata Motors (down 2.05%) and Asian Paints (down 1.19%) edged lower from the Sensex pack.

Oil & gas stocks dropped. Shares of oil exploration and production (E&P) companies fell. Reliance Industries (down 1.13%), ONGC (down 1.4%) and Oil India (down 0.3%) edged lower.

Among PSU OMCs, HPCL (down 1.7%), BPCL (down 2.18%) and Indian Oil Corporation (down 2.16%) declined.

Among gas utility stocks, Indraprastha Gas (down 0.65%), Gujarat State Petronet (up 0.84%), Gujarat Gas (down 0.54%) and GAIL (India) (down 1.24%) fell.

Telecom stocks saw mixed trend. MTNL (up 1.44%), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 4.98%) and Reliance Communications (up 1.06%) rose. Bharti Airtel (down 0.19%) and Idea Cellular (down 0.03%) fell.

Shares of Bharti Infratel rose 0.43%. Bharti Infratel is a provider of tower and related infrastructure and is a unit of Bharti Airtel.

Zensar Technologies rose 1.26% after the company announced an extension of its managed partner relationship with Microsoft in South Africa in the Global Systems Integrator (GSI) market. The key focus of this partnership for both entities will involve making inroads in the growth areas of cloud, digital, big data & analytics, cyber-security and e-commence. Customers in the region will also be able to leverage differentiated offerings in the cloud space from this alliance. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 15 March 2018.

The scope of this partnership will involve the Zensar team working with Microsoft's recently formed One Commercial Partner team to build a go to market strategy. This will involve leveraging Zensar engagements and case studies on Azure, as well as more than 100 Zensar Azure certified associates.

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