Nifty trades weak; FMCG, oil & gas, auto down

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The NSE Nifty was trading weak and found it difficult to notch up to its psychological 5450 mark in afternon trade. Except BSE IT index, all other sectoral indices were trading negative. FMCG, oil & gas, auto, banks and realty indices were down over 0.5% each.

Stocks like Reliance, ICICI Bank, ITC, L&T and HDFC Bank were negative contributors to the Sensex.

Anil Manghnani, Modern Shares & Stock Brokers says after this rangebound session market could swing either ways. "The problem is lack of volumes. If there is a small amount of buying or selling, whether in Nifty futures or stocks, the market tends to move 30-40 points very quickly," he says.

At 13.13 hrs IST, the Sensex was down 81.04 points or 0.44% at 18303.86, and the Nifty was down 31.90 points or 0.58% at 5489.15.

About 1266 shares advanced, 1440 declined, and 943 remained unchanged.

Top losers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,197 was down 1.66%, Hero Honda at Rs 1,722.60 down 1.31%, ITC at Rs 192.55 down 1.23%, Jaiprakash Asso at Rs 81.30 down 1.22% and Reliance at Rs 942.55 down 1.21%.

Refinery major HPCL was trading at Rs 367.85 down 0.93% from its previous close of Rs 371.30.

However, top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco at Rs 184.70 was up 0.87%, ONGC at Rs 267 up 0.68%, TCS at Rs 1,191.50 up 0.61%, Infosys at Rs 2,868.10 up 0.23% and Jindal Steel at Rs 632.30 up 0.16%.

Index of Industrial production (IIP) for the month of April grew at 4.4% - less as compared to growth of 7.3% in previous month, as per old series. As per new series, which have 45% more items than old series, IIP grew at 6.3%.

April IIP growth figures 'disturbing', says Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. "We need to wait for longer term IIP growth to see trend," he said.