Weakness persists dragged by banks

Banks, Infosys among top Sensex losers

Markets continued to witness a weak trend in noon trades on Wednesday dragged by banks after ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned on Wednesday about a significant chance of downgrading India's credit rating.

At 1:15pm, the Sensex was down 131 points at 18,662 and the Nifty was down 43 points at 5,661.

In the broader markets, the midcap and the smallcap indices were down nearly 1% each under performing the Sensex which lost 0.5%.

Apart from Consumer Durables index which was flat with a positive bias all the otehr sectoral indices were in the red on the BSE. The ones leading the losses were Realty, Power, Capital Goods, PSU and Bankex down 1-3%.

Bank shares are witnessing profit taking at higher levels after recent gains. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI were down 0.7-1.4% each.

Software majors continued to witness a downward trend with Infosys down nearly 1% ahead of its second quarter earnings due on Friday. TCS and Wipro were down 0.5% each.

Auto shares were down after an Society of Indian Automobile Manfacturers said, car sales in India are seen growing just 1-3% in the financial year that ends in March 2013, as it slashed its previous estimate of 9-11% on high interest rates and slowing economic growth.
Maruti Suzuki and Mah & Mah were down 0.5-1.3% each. However, Tata Motors was marginally up.

Capital goods majors L&T and BHEL continue to witness profit taking after recent gains.BHEL was down 2% while L&T lost 0.7%.

Among other shares, McNally Bharat Engineering Company was trading higher by 3% at Rs 117 on receiving construction order worth of Rs 108 crore from Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners.

The broader market was also weak with both the Mid-cap and Small-cap indices down nearly 1% each.

Market breadth continued to remain weak with 1,735 declines and 917 and gainers on BSE.