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Benchmark indices have erased early gains and have slipped into negative zone weighed down by metal and power stocks.
At 12:45 PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 33 points at 20,779 while the 50-unit NSE Nifty was trading at Nifty 6,178, down 8 points.
Adds Pritesh Mehta, Senior Technical Analyst at IIFL, “On Friday, Nifty had 60 pts upmove and we closed at the higher end of the trading range. Normally when such breakout occurs after a long period of consolidation, then what we like to see is following up buying. But today index is just hovering around 6200. Banks are only leading this market higher but historically we have seen that Bank stocks they tend to fizzle out at higher levels. The clear visible picture is that this market is still locked in a trading range between 5980 and 6,200 and inside there are numerous resistances and supports. So, market is not going to give any big move until this trend is decisively broken.”
On the global front, Asian share markets regained some altitude on Tuesday courtesy of a tailwind from Wall Street which sped to historic highs amid more mergers buzz, while gold consolidated its recent rally.
The upbeat mood among investors in the United States and Europe at least helped steady markets in China after talk of credit tightening knocked property shares.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.5%, while Seoul gained 0.7%. Australia's market briefly hit its highest since mid-2008 on a run of solid earnings reports.
Back home, the rupee trimmed initial gains against the US dollar but was still higher by 6 paise at 62.01 on selling of the US currency by banks amid sustained foreign capital inflows.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 266.87 crore on Monday, 24 February 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
On the sectoral front, BSE Metal and Power indices have declined by 1% each. However, BSE IT index has gained by nearly 1%.
The main losers on the Sensex at this hour include GAIL, NTPC, Coal India, Tata Steel, Tata Power and Sesa Sterlite.
On the gaining side, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, BHEL, Bharti Airtel and Cipla have gained between 1-2%.
Among other shares, Aurobindo Pharma has surged 5% to Rs 508 on back of heavy volumes on the bourses.
The broader markets are outperforming the benchmark indices- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are up 0.1-0.2%.
The market breadth in BSE turns marginally weak with 1,176 shares declining and 1,098 shares advancing.
