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Markets have slumped suddenly in late noon trades, giving off its gains from early this morning. The Sensex, after touching a high of 18,566 has slipped to the negative zone. It is now trading flat at 18,434. The 50 share NSE Nifty is up 14 points at 5,556.
Most Asian markets advanced Tuesday to cheer benign inflation data from China and a solid start to the U.S. earnings season, while Japanese stocks let early gains slip by to snap a four-day winning streak as investors took profits in banks. The Nikkei ended flat at 13192. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite however added 0.7% each.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 163.95 crore on Monday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
"Nifty has formed a Double Bottom on daily charts near 5530 levels and a bounce from that level (due to oversold nature of markets) would find its first retracement resistance near 5620 markl. 5620 - 5640 (200 Day SMA) zone can be used to book part longs and hold the balance with trailing stop losses," said Ranak Merchant, Technical Analyst - Strategies, Sushil Financial Services.
Weakness was noticed in IT shares. BSE IT Index slipped 1.5% at 6,561. Consumer durables, FMCG and oil& gas indices also declined marginally in trades.
However, the auto index held on to gains - up 1% at 9,870. Capital goods, metal and bankex were up 0.6-0.9% each.
Auto stocks were mostly higher. Maruti Suzuki India rose 0.5% on hopes that a recent weakness in yen currency would improve the company's margins by reducing the costs of importing auto parts from Japan. Tata Motors rose 3.3%. The company's total sales (including exports) of Tata commercial and passenger vehicles in March 2013 were 72,712 vehicles. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) rose 0.5%. M&M's total automobile sales rose 11% to 51,904 units in March 2013 over March 2012.
On the other hand, Wipro is down 12% at Rs 392. The company has demerged its non-IT businesses like Consumer Care & Lighting into a new company to focus exclusively on information technology.
Another IT major - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has moved higher by 2% to Rs 1,510 in noon deals after country's biggest software services provider said it will acquire France-based enterprise solutions provider Alti SA for 75 million Euro (about Rs 533 crore) in an all-cash deal.
BSE market breadth was neutral. Out of 2,333 shares traded, 1,163 shares have delcined hwile 1,049 shares have advanced in trades.
