Nifty remains below 8300, Sensex volatile; ONGC, Dr Reddy's soar

Moneycontrol Bureau12:35 pm Coal production: State-owned Coal India, the world's largest coal miner, is expected to raise its production to 660 million tonnes in 2017/18 fiscal year, the coal secretary said.

The miner is expected to achieve its 2016/17 production target of 575 million tonnes and aims to raise output to 1 billion tonnes by 2020, Susheel Kumar told television news channel CNBC-TV18 in an interview.

With coal accounting for about 70 percent of India's power generation, the country is the world's third-biggest producer and importer of the fuel, and government wants to boost domestic output to cut imports.

Coal India, however, has failed to meet its output targets for years due to several reasons including strikes, accidents and protests.

During April-December, Coal India produced 378 million tonnes, lagging behind its target for this financial year ending in March.12:20 pm Tata Sons EGM: After ousting him as Chairman, Tata Sons has called a shareholders' meeting on February 6 to remove Cyrus Mistry as director of the holding company of the USD 103-billion Tata Group.

Tata Sons had abruptly removed Mistry as its Chairman on October 24 and sought his ouster from operating companies like Tata Motors and TCS. Mistry subsequently resigned from the board of six companies, but dragged Tata Sons and his interim successor Ratan Tata to the National Company Law Tribunal.

After the board meeting of October 24, 2016, Tata Sons had resolved that Mistry shall, notwithstanding his ceasing to be the Chairman, continue as a director of the company.

"Subsequent to his replacement, Mistry has made certain unsubstantiated allegations, which cast aspersions not only on Tata Sons Limited and its board of directors, but also on the Tata group as a whole. Internal communications, including confidential, were made public. Mistry's conduct has caused enormous harm to the Tata group and its stakeholders, including employees and shareholders," Tata Sons said in a note for extraordinary general meeting (EGM).Also read - Buy, sell, hold: 6 stocks that you should watch out today12:00 pm Market Check

The volatility continued in noon trade after the Nifty reclaimed 8300 level. Oil and banking & financials stocks continued to support the market but the sell-off in technology stocks weighed.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 1.31 points at 26879.55 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 0.50 points to 8274.30.

ONGC and Dr Reddy's Labs were the biggest gainers among Sensex 30 stocks, up 2-3 percent while TCS and Infosys were down over 2 percent on US immigration fears.Also read - Buy JSW Energy, can climb to Rs 70; ONGC looks good: GabaCiti remains cautious on technology sector, saying the recent re-introduction of the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act reaffirms its view that immigration reform remains an overhang to watch and likely a key theme for the sector in 2017.

Asian markets traded mixed, with Japanese automakers coming under pressure following a tweet by President-elect Donald Trump directed at Toyota, as well as due to a stronger yen.

Oil prices were little changed on Friday after gaining nearly 1 percent the day before on news that Saudi Arabia had cut production to meet OPEC's agreement to reduce output.