Sensex lacklustre; RIL, Renuka, ICICI Bank most active

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At 13:56 hours IST - the Sensex was lacklustre and was trading with a narrow range of of 17125-17200. Power, capital goods, realty and select telecom stocks along with HUL (lost over another 3%, might be because of downgrade by brokerages), Sun Pharma, Cipla, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Infosys and BPCL were witnessing selling pressure.

However, oil & gas exploration and auto stocks were still supporting the markets. Bharti Airtel, TCS, ITC, Hindalco, Sterlite, Tata Power, ICICI Bank, SBI and Siemens were other gainers. This clearly showed that indices were seeing two-way moves.

Strong growth in January Index of Industrial Production numbers was not able to bring cheers to the markets. Industrial output (IIP) for the month of January grew 16.7% as against 1% in January 2009. The December IIP data revised upwards upwards to 17.6% from 16.8%.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 17162, down 5 points while the Nifty was at 5133, up 0.35 points. The Nifty March future was trading with a 12-points premium.

The market breadth was in favour of declines; about 1114 shares advanced while 1803 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 269 shares were unchanged.

Hindalco, Man Infra, Jubilant Foodworks, Reliance Industries, Core Projects, Shree Renuka, ICICI Bank, SBI and JSW Steel were the most active shares on the bourses.

In the midcap space, Monnet Ispat, IndusInd Bank, Gillette India, Fortis Health and Puravankara Projects were up 3-4% while REI Six Ten, Shree Renuka, Balrampur Chini, Sobha Developer and M&M Financial slipped 4-7%.

In the smallcap space, Sterling Holiday, Sunil Hitech Engg, Shirpur Gold, Hitachi Home and Oscar Inv gained 5-7.6% while Take Solutions, Graviss Hosp, Atco Corp, Elantas Beck and Dhampur Sugar lost 6-10%.