Nifty tests 5650; realty, pharma, metals, IT, oil & gas dip

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At 13:29 hours IST - Indian equities continued the sell-off for second consecutive day in a choppy trade. The benchmark Nifty has tested 5650 level in afternoon trade. Oil & gas, realty and metal companies' shares were adding fuel to fire. Bharti, Infosys, BHEL, Wipro, M&M, HUL, HDFC and ICICI Bank too were adding pressure on benchmarks.

Veteran technical chartist Louise Yamada of Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors said Nifty can see a pullback to 5500 if it remains below 5700. Meanwhile, she sees short-term support for Sensex at 19,000. "Sensex and Nifty should see sideways movement ahead," she adds.

However, consistent buying in TCS, SBI, Tata Motors, ITC, Bajaj Auto, L&T, Hindalco, Ambuja Cements, ACC, Power Grid and Sesa Goa was supporting the markets and was trying to limit losses to some extent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 18,819, down 150 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 44 points 5,643. European markets too were down in opening trade.

January series is due for expiry today. Total traded turnover was more than Rs 89,000 crore, including Rs 82,588 crore from F&O segment.

Among frontliners, M&M, Sterlite Industries, DLF, HUL, Wipro and GAIL were trading with loss of 2.3-4%. However, Tata Motors, Jaiprakash Associates, Bajaj Auto, ITC, SBI and Sesa Goa were up 0.4-1.4%.

In midcap space, Atlas Copco jumped 13% to Rs 2,114 as company revised delisting floor price to Rs 2,250/share.

IBN18 Broadcast shot up 8.80% on strong quarterly numbers. It has reported a profit of Rs 20 crore in December quarter as against loss of Rs 13 crore in previous quarter. Network 18 too gained 5.97% as it has posted consolidated net profit of Rs 79 crore as against loss of Rs 36 crore on quarter-on-quarter basis.

Money Matters and Core Projects rose 4.6-5% while Jyothy Labs, Blue Star, Sanwaria Agro, BOC India and Kalpataru Power lost 4.6-11%.

In smallcap space, PI Industries surged 16%. Nahar Spinning, Gemini Comm, Timken and Rollatainers gained 6-9.6% whereas Splash Media, SREI Infra, Ion Exchange, Modern India and Binny slipped 5-9.5%.