Nifty choppy ahead of expiry tomorrow; auto stocks gain

The BSE Sensex continued to trade volatile ahead of April expiry session on Thursday. Shares of Wipro, Infosys, TCS and ICICI Bank weighed on the market while Bharti, Reliance Industries, L&T and State Bank of India were supporting the market.

The BSE benchmark was down 22.43 points to 17,184.86 and the NSE benchmark fell 6 points to 5,216.85.

The Nifty has been capped in a very narrow band of about 5,160 to 5,320, says Gaurav Doshi, VP-PMS of Morgan Stanley PWM. “While the Nifty continues to trade in a small band, we think a move above 5,320 will potentially take the Nifty higher to 5,550 or a break below 5,180 will take us down to the 5,050 levels,” he warns.

Wipro tanked nearly 8% post company's muted guidance for Q1FY13. India's third largest software company by market cap said its net profit for the January-March quarter went up 1.7% QoQ to Rs 1,481 crore while revenues fell 0.45% to Rs 9,836 crore. However, company said its IT services revenues would be around USD 1.52-1.55 billion for April-June quarter, which is just 0.6% higher than Q4FY12. Top IT companies TCS and Infosys were down over 1%.

Private sector lender ICICI Bank was down 0.56% while rivals State Bank of India and HDFC Bank gained 0.2% and 0.9%, respectively.

State-owned BHEL and NTPC dropped 0.75% each.

However, shares of top telecom operator Bharti Airtel topped the buying list, rising over 2% after falling sharply in previous two sessions on TRAI recommendations.

Auto stocks like Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp and Maruti Suzuki gained over 1% whereas Tata Motors was up just 0.4%.

Stocks In News

Igarashi Motors was locked at 20% upper circuit today as its Q4 net jumped 450% YoY to Rs 6.6 crore and net sales increased 42.31% to Rs 74 crore.

ING Vysya Bank fell 3%, even after its profit after tax fell 39.56% YoY to Rs 127 crore and net interest income rose 19% to Rs 319 crore.

Petronet LNG slipped 1.6% as it reported lower than expected numbers in Q4. Its net profit came in at Rs 245 crore while CNBC-TV18 poll had expected at Rs 292 crore.