Negative bias prevails

Infosys and TCS gains ahead of quarterly results

Markets continue to remain flat with negative bias in early noon deals as profit booking in FMCG and index heavyweight Reliance Industries negated gains in software and select financial shares. At 11.25 am, the BSE Sensex was down 62 points at17,556 and the Nifty lost 16 points at 5,329.

Meanwhile, the broader markets remained resilient with the midcap and the smallcap indices advancing 0.4-0.5% outperforming the Sensex down 0.2%.

Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday on worries that the global economic slowdown will erode corporate earnings, with the market unconvinced the euro zone can decisively bring down struggling member states' borrowing costs even after yields pulled back. Nikkei, Hang Seng and Kospi Composite down 0.3-0.5% were the major losers.

Back home, among the sectoral indices, Consumer Durables gained over 1% along with IT, Bankex and Capital Goods up 0.2-0.7%. However, Realty, auto, FMCG and Oil & Gas indices lost between 0.6-1%.

Auto shares also witnessed profit taking after recent data showed that car sales in India registered 8.3% growth in June. Hindalco, Tata Motors,Wipro, Bharti Airtel, ITC, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Power, BHEL and ICICI Bank down 1-2% were the major Sensex losers.

Ahead of their earnings for the quarter ended June 2012, IT majors, Infosys and TCS gained 0.5-1% along with SBI, HDFC Bank and L&T up 0.3-0.5%.

Among other stocks, Infotech Enterprises surged 5% at Rs 193 on back of huge block deal on the counter. A combined 12.12 million shares have change hands on the counter so far, against sub 50,000 shares that were traded daily in past two weeks. The name of the buyers and sellers were not immediately known.

Among other shares, Cummins India was trading lower by 4% at Rs 431, after its parent company, Cummins Inc., cut its full-year sales forecast.

Financial Technologies (India) and Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX), the promoters of MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX), rallied more than 6% each after MCX-SX got the nod from market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), to start operations as a full-fledged stock exchange.

The market breadth was positive owing to the strength in the broader markets. 1268 stocks advanced while 1015 stocks declined on the BSE.