Choppy Sensex trades lower; Infy, TCS gain ahead of Q1 nos

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty remained under marginal selling pressure due to downward journey in Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank. ITC, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors and ONGC too were adding pressure on the market. However, the buying interest in Infosys, SBI, L&T and TCS has limited the downside.

The BSE benchmark went down 68.08 points to 17,550.27 and the NSE benchmark declined 18 points to 5,327.45.

However, the Indian rupee appreciated further by 13 paise to 55.26 against the US dollar. Yesterday, it had gained 54 paise from 55.93 against the US dollar.

The market may be consolidating ahead of quarterly earnings from major companies like Infosys (rose 1%) and TCS (was up 0.5%) that scheduled for tomorrow in the morning (before 9 am) and evening (after 5 pm) respectively. However, their rival Wipro plunged 2%.

Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank went down 1% while its rivals State Bank of India and HDFC Bank moved up over 0.6%.

Index heavyweights Reliance Industries, ITC and Bharti Airtel were down more than 1%. FMCG major HUL and state-owned oil & gas producer ONGC fell 0.8% each.

Power equipment manufacturer BHEL declined over 1% whereas engineering and construction major by sales Larsen & Toubro was up 0.3%.

Among auto stocks, commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors was up over 1.4%. Bajaj Auto, M&M and Maruti were down 0.5-1%.

In the second line shares, Infotech Enterprises, Shriram City, Financial Tech, Jaypee Infra and EIH rallied 4-7% whereas Syndicate Bank, Clariant, Madras Cements,
Prestige Estate and Sadbhav Engg were down 2-4%.