Sensex, Nifty consolidate; Midcap, Smallcap outperform; ITC up

Moneycontrol Bureau10:50 am USFDA nod: Zydus Cadila has received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market Carboplatin injection.The group now has more than 100 approvals and has so far filed over 280 ANDAs, since commencement of filing process in FY04.10:40 am Bharat Wire listing: Bharat Wire Ropes saw strong debut on Friday, opening 5 percent higher at Rs 47.25 on National Stock Exchange but could not sustain gains for long.

The stock fell marginally below issue price of Rs 45, trading at Rs 44.90 (at 10:38 hours IST).

Bharat Wire Ropes raised Rs 70 crore through public issue that was open for subscription during March 18-22.

The Maharashtra-based specialty wire ropes manufacturer will use issue proceeds for setting up a manufacturing plant at Chalisgaon in Maharashtra and for other general corporate purposes.10:20 am FII View: Just ahead of the Union Budget, with the market trading close to 23,000 levels and a lot of pessimism building in, Manishi Raychaudhuri of BNP Paribas told CNBC-TV18 he expects the benchmark to reach 29,000 by December this year.

A month and a 2,300-point gain on, he is sticking to the call.

"We have covered ground since our last call. We think the rest of the gains will come through largely earnings growth and some through market re-rating," he said.

Analysts have on average forecast earnings to grow about 15-17 percent in fiscal year 2017 (despite corporate earnings being about flat for two years now).

Raychaudhuri said he was more modest in his earnings expectations, at about 12-14 percent, and said that a marginal rise in the PE ratio would take the Sensex to the brokerage's 29,000 target.Also read - HCL Tech likely to buy 37% in Geometric: Sources10:00 am Market Check

Equity benchmarks continued to consolidate with a negative bias with the Sensex falling 7.17 points to 25334.69 and the Nifty declining 5.20 points to 7733.20.

However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 0.5 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively on strong market breadth. More than two shares advanced for every share declining on BSE.Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, Lupin, M&M and Adani Ports were down 1-3 percent while ITC, L&T and Wipro gained over a percent.BHEL topped buying list on Sensex, up over 6 percent.