Nifty in narrow range; oil & gas, TECk slip

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The benchmark Nifty was consolidating in a narrow range of 5200-5250 at 10:39 hours, after a sharp cut seen since previous two weeks. The index shed more than 500 points in last two weeks. However, the broader indices managed to claw back with modest gain.

Deven Choksey, managing director of KR Choksey Shares & Securities said the markets may be headed to a state of capitulation. However, he added that in this kind of a market one should look forward to more opportunities on the buying side. "I think one will have to play cautiously at the same time," he felt.

Stocks, which led the fall yesterday, continued in today's trade as well. Oil & gas, telecom, technology, metal, FMCG, cement and select power companies' shares were keeping the markets under pressure with moderate loss.

However, buying in financial and auto companies' shares limited those losses to major extent. NTPC, L&T and Cairn too added some support.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 17,400, down 63 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 17 points to 5,208. However, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were up half a percent.

Heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ONGC, TCS, Wipro, Infosys and BHEL declined 1-3%. Reliance Communications was the top loser with 6% fall and Bharti lost 0.8%.

SAIL, Tata Steel, JSPL, Sesa Goa and Hindalco from metal space were down 1.5-3%. ITC and HUL from FMCG segment went down with moderate loss.

However, Tata Motors gained nearly 2% ahead of its quarterly numbers today. CNBC-TV18 poll sees 3 times jump in company's profit after tax of Rs 2089 crore for the quarter ended December 2010. Hero Honda and Maruti gained one percent each.

In financial space, HDFC and ICICI Bank were up 1-2%. SBI, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were marginally in green. IDFC jumped 4.4%.

Cairn India was the top gainer with 5% rally after strong numbers. Its Q3 consolidated net profit was up at Rs 2,010 crore versus Rs 291 crore, year-on-year basis.

In midcap space, Sobha Developer, PTC India, Jain Irrigation, Gillette India and S Kumars Nation gained 6-8% while Sunteck Realty, Indian Metals, KGN Industries, Phoenix Mills and Parsvnath slipped 5%.

In smallcap space, Provogue, Hinduja Foundries, Tilaknagar Inds, Asian Hotel (W) and Shirpur Gold rallied 10-15% whereas R M Mohite, Moser Baer, Dion Global, Talwalkars Fitness and EIH Associated Hotel fell 6-10%.