The markets are subdued this afternoon, albeit with a negative bias, post the strong gains registered last week. The Sensex, which had slipped below the psychological 17k mark at one point, is currently quoting at 17,036, lower by 46 points and the Nifty is at 5116, down 16 points. The midcap and smallcap indices are also equally listless at 6195 and 6927 respectively.
The benchmark indices had notched up gains of around 5% last week to register the best week in the past six weeks. The IT major Infosys had set the tone by raising its full-year guidance and RIL added further fuel to the rally in anticipation of a good set of numbers. But the short-lived rally back home seems to have fizzled out atleast for now, in contrast with the sustained strength being exhibited by the global bourses, in the absence of any follow-up buying in the current session.
On the global front, the Nikkei average jumped to a six-week high of 8871, up 131 points. Peers across Hong Kong, Seoul and Taiwan rose in tandem to add in the region of 1-2% each. And the FTSE, CAC and DAX toed the line to gain by similar margins.
Auto stocks are calling the shots in today's session. Tata Motors has galloped 5.7% at Rs 190 on the BSE after its global sales rose 24% to 1,07,258 units in Q2 September 2011 over Q2 September 2010. The auto major had zoomed over 13% in the previous week. And Maruti Suzuki has recovered from 52-week lows touched earlier in the session on reportedly resuming partial production at its Manesar plant. The stock raced ahead by 2.7% at Rs 1,056.
The banking stocks have also extended recent gains triggered by hopes that a slowing economy could prompt the RBI to pause its rate hikes. SBI has taken off from where it left last week, strengthening by 1.2% at Rs 1905, ICICI Bank has gained 1% at Rs 899 and HDFC Bank has added 0.8% at Rs 477.
On the other hand, RIL has declined by 3.8% at Rs 833 on news reports that it will halt drilling because of a review on the internal valuations of its exploration activity by the government. On Saturday, the oil & gas conglomerate had reported a 16% jump in net profit at Rs 5703 crore on 34.73% rise in turnover to Rs 80790 crore in Q2 September 2011 over Q2 September 2010.
IT stocks are seeing profit-booking after leading the upmove last week. Infosys, which spurted 9.5% post it Q2 numbers, has weakened by 0.6% at Rs 2728 and Wipro has shed 1.7% at Rs 357.
Among the major result candidates of the day, HDFC is trading firm at Rs 670, up 0.6%, after reporting a growth of 20.2% in net profit of Rs 971 crore for the quarter ended September 2011 as against Rs 807.5 crore in same quarter the previous year. Zee Entertainment is up 1.36% at 113.80 after posting a growth of 23% in net profit for the second quarter ended September, 2011, at Rs 160 crore. On the other hand, TCS has shed 0.7% at Rs 1126 ahead of its numbers scheduled later in the day and.
The market breadth is weak. Out of 2734 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1288 advancing stocks as against 1328 declines.
