Sensex flat; TCS up 9% on better outlook, Bharti down

The BSE Sensex started off trade with 36 points gap up amid volatility on Tuesday, consolidating after yesterday's sharp fall. The Indian rupee depreciated by 25 paise or 0.49% to 52.75 a dollar.

Telecom stocks continued to fall due to TRAI recommendations since yesterday. Largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel crashed 5% to below Rs 300 a share while Reliance Communications was down 1.5%. Aditya Birla Group company Idea Cellular tanked over 8%.

The BSE benchmark was down 31.39 points at 17,065.29 and the NSE benchmark fell 12.4 points to 5,188.20.

ITC, Reliance Industries, Maruti, JSPL, DLF, ONGC, Hero Motocorp and L&T were under pressure.

However, TCS shot up nearly 9% after better than expected numbers in fourth quarter of FY12. Even the company looked confident of beating NASSCOM's guidance of 11-13% for FY13.

Its rival Wipro was up 1.5% ahead of results tomorrow morning. HCL Tech rose 1.3% while Infosys was flat.

Cipla, Dr Reddy's Labs and BPCL were moderately higher.

In the second line shares, United Phosphorous tanked 5% after The Economic Times reported that CCI fined Rs 252.4 crore for price manipulation.

Kingfisher was down 3% and United Spirits dropped 1.7%.

Results reactions: Rallis India was down 7% while Ultratech Cement was up 0.5%.

Petronet LNG and ING Vysya Bank gained 0.5-1% ahead of results today.

KRBL and Kohinoor Foods surged 5.5% post China allowed imports on Indian basmati rice.