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Markets extended losses in late trades trades after index heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys trimmed gains and profit taking was seen in bank shares post earnings from ICICI Bank.
At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 119 points at 25,968 and the 50-share Nifty was down 45 points at 7,746.
Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys which were up over 1% were now trading 0.8% and 0.5% higher, respectively.
Bank shares witnessed profit taking in late trades with Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI down 0.5-1.5% each.
ICICI Bank was down 0.5%. The bank reported a net profit of Rs.2,655 crore which was better than what the street had expected. However, Gross NPAs and Net NPAs were tad higher compared to the previous quarter.
Country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India today reported a 20% rise in net profit at Rs 762 crore for the quarter ended June 2014. It was Rs 632 crore in the same period a year ago. The net sales increased 5% to Rs 11,074 crore from Rs 10,529 crore in June 2013. The stock was trading flat at Rs 2,551.
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(updated at 1:35PM)
Oil and gas shares continued to remain firm amid narrow trades in noon deals with investors unwilling to create fresh positions ahead of the expiry of July derivative contracts today. Further, sales by foreign funds also weighed on sentiment.
At 1:35PM the 30-share Sensex was trading 54 points down at 26,033 and the 50-share Nifty was trading 24 points lower at 7,767.
Foreign investors were sellers of $63.4 million for the first time in the last ten sessions, as per provisional data released by the stock exchange.
The Indian rupee was trading lower at Rs 60.35 compared to the previous close of Rs 60.09 as the dollar strengthened following encouraging GDP data from the US.
Major Asian indices were trading higher with the exception of Japan. Japanese shares ended marginally lower amid profit taking after recent gains. The benchmark Nikkei ended down 0.2% at 15,620.77. Shanghai Composite was up 0.9% and Hang Seng gained 0.2% while Straits Times was trading 0.8% higher.
European shares were trading mixed with stock specific action seen following announcement of corporate earnings. FTSE was trading with marginal gains up 0.2%, CAC-40 and DAX were trading 0.01-0.55% lower.
BSE Oil and Gas index was the top sectoral gainer up 0.8% followed by Healthcare up 0.2%. All other sectoral indices were trading with marginal losses.
Reliance Industries was trading just above its near term trading support of Rs 990. The stock was up 0.9% at Rs 1,015. ONGC was trading marginally higher at Rs 400.
Metal shares were also among the Sensex gainers with Tata Steel was up 1.6% and Sesa Sterlite gained 0.1%.
Other gainers include Tata Steel and Cipla among others.
Meanwhile, L&T continue to witness profit taking as the performance of engineering and construction major’s core business in the June quarter disappointed the Street, as execution remained weak in the domestic business.
Other Sensex losers include, TCS, HDFC and ITC among others.
The broader markets outperformed the benchmarks with BSE Mid-cap index up 0.4 and the BSE Small-cap index was up 0.3%.
Market breadth was strong with 1,405 gainers and 1,256 losers on the BSE.
