Nifty struggles at 5100 on weak Asian cues; banks dip

At 11:12 hours IST, the Nifty was consolidating at previous closing value as today is the last day of November series. The sell-off in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, BHEL, ITC, Infosys, SBI, HDFC Bank and L&T was keeping the markets on the lower side. However, buying in telecom, cement and realty stocks along with Sterlite, Hindalco, Wipro, Hero Honda and HUL was helping the benchmark indices. Siemens was up over 1% ahead of its results.

Weak Asian markets also weighted on the markets. Shanghai lost 1.7%. Jakarta and Hang Seng fell 1% each. Nikkei and Straits Times were down 0.5% each. Kospi and Taiwan Weighted fell 0.2% each.

The Sensex slipped 50 points to 17,148 and the Nifty declined 16 points to 5,092. The Nifty December future was trading with 11 points premium.

The market breadth was mixed; about 1,451 shares advanced while 1,367 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 615 shares were unchanged.

In the midcap space, Bayer Cropscience, Birla Corp, India Cements, EIH and KGN Industries gained 5-6% while Dena Bank, United Phosphorous, Vijaya Bank, Bannariamman and Asian Star slipped 3-4%.

In the smallcap space, Atlanta, Dalmia Cement, JK Cement, Heidelberg Cement and BL Kashyap were up 5-8% while Jindal Worldwide, Swaraj Mazda, Allied Digital and Pratibha Industries lost 3.5-5%.

Asian Hotels declined 3.36% post disappointing set of numbers. Its July-September quarter's net profit fell 95% to Rs 0.94 crore. The company said results were impacted by low occupancies and rates. However, it also said, "Occupancies have shown signs of improvement and room rate improvement will follow."

Jyothy Labs was up over 2%, as the management expects over 35% topline growth going forward, mainly driven by volumes. "Gross margins expected to be about 45% after first 6 months."

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