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After a green start, the markets have slipped into the negative territory as weakness in frontliners like L&T, M&M, ITC and Tata Motors capped gains in IT heavyweights.
At 1000 hrs, the Sensex was down 34 points at 27,172 and the Nifty was down 13 points at 8,133.
Shares of Sharda Corpchem have listed at Rs 260, a 67% premium against its issue price of Rs 156 per share, on the National Stock Exchange. The Rs 350-crore initial public offering (IPO) of agrochemical company Sharda Cropchem was subscribed around 60 times.
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(Updated at 1000 hrs)
Shrugging off weak global cues, markets have opened on a flat note with a positive bias on account of gains in IT heavyweights in opening trades. At 0920 hrs, the Sensex was up 20 points at 27,228 and the Nifty gained seven points to trade at 8,154.
However, there was some buying in the broader markets. The mid and smallcap index opened up with gains between 0.3-0.5%.
Among the sectoral indices, Capital Goods, Metal and FMCG were the only pockets to open in red, down 0.03-0.4%.
Defensives in the form of IT scrips were the top gainers with TCS, Infosys and Wipro leading early gains, up 0.6-1.5%.
ICICI Bank, Bajaj Auto, Maruti, Hindlaco and NTPC were the other top gainers with gains between 0.3-0.8%.
Pharma stocks gained after the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority withdrew guidelines for price control of 108 formulations, which was issued under para 19 of the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO).
Glaxosmithkiline Pharmaceuticals and Torrent Pharma up 2-3% were the top movers in this space. Among the Sensex names, Dr Reddys gained 1% while Cipla and Sun Pharma were flat with a negative bias.
Among the major losers were M&M which lost nearly 1.5% after a foreign brokerage house downgraded the company.
L&T, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Tata Steel and SBI down 0.5-1% were some of the other laggards.
The market breadth was positive on BSE. 1,053 stocks advanced while 644 stocks declined.
Global Markets
Asian shares recouped early losses on Tuesday while commodities won a break from recent selling pressure after a reading on China's massive factory sector outpaced the market's bleak expectations.
The HSBC flash reading on manufacturing (PMI) for September rose to 50.5, from 50.2 in August and confounding forecasts for a dip to 50.0.
The Shanghai Composite Index added 0.5% and the CSI300 of the leading Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listings bounced 0.6%.
US stocks closed lower on Monday, with the S&P 500 suffering its biggest one-day decline since early August, as the latest housing data came in much weaker than expected, raising new concerns about the rate of growth in the economy.
Existing home sales fell 1.8% in August, far from the growth of 1% that had been expected.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.62%, to 17,173, the S&P 500 lost 0.8%, to 1,994 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.14%, to 4,528. The day marked the biggest one-day decline for the S&P since Aug. 5, and the biggest for the Nasdaq since July 31.
