Nifty lacklustre; banks slip, oil & gas, metals gain

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The benchmark Nifty was directionless in opening trade today and was consolidating for the third consecutive day, especially after rally seen in first four days of last week. The index has been hovering around 6,000 and Sensex at 20,000 - psychologically important levels. Financials continued their downtrend as RBI Governor asked banks to trim interest margins.

Among frontliners, ICICI Bank, SBI, PNB, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Reliance Communications, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Jaiprakash Associates, Reliance Capital and DLF were witnessing selling pressure.

However, Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy's Labs, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, Hindalco, Hero Honda, Infosys, Wipro, Reliance Industries and ONGC were on buyers' radar.

At 9:17 hours IST, the 30-share BSE Senex was trading at 19955, down 26 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty was at 5986, down 5.6 points. 

Midcap & Smallcap space:

RPP Infra Projects slipped another 3.77% to Rs 66.35 on second day.

CEBBCO was down 4.5%. Koutons and Shree Ashtavinayak were down 5% each. Parekh Aluminex plunged 10%.

OBC, UCO Bank and Vijaya Bank declined 1-1.5%.

GVK Power and Alok Industries fell 1% each. Kingfisher Airliners lost 0.5%.

However, Jyoti Structures rose 1.8%; board approved setting up a base for manufacture of lattice steel towers in USA. It will invest up to USD 12 million, from time to time.

HCC went up 2.5% as it signed two agreements with VINCI affiliates to jointly work on power and infrastructure projects.

Delta Corp was up 1%, Welspun Corp was up 2.4%, Hanung Toys was up 2.4% and Edelweiss was up 2%.