Sensex, Nifty continue uptrend on banks support; ITC, HUL drag

Moneycontrol Bureau11:45 am OFS: The government's 15 percent stake sale in construction company NBCC on bourses took off today, with over 50 percent of the shares reserved for institutional investors getting subscribed in the first hour of trade.

As much as 9 crore shares will be sold over two days, with institutional investors getting to bid on the first day and retail ones getting a chance tomorrow.

The floor price has been fixed at Rs 246.50, which is at a discount to the prevailing market price of Rs 251 per share.

As on 1035 hours, as against 7.20 crore shares offered to institutional buyers today, bids came in for over 3.88 crore, or 54 percent of the shares on offer, as per data available on NSE. The share sale for today will continue till close of the market.

11:30 am Nestle India to get hurt? Nestle became the latest company to be hit by the global slowdown affecting food manufacturers after posting its weakest underlying sales growth in more than a decade.

The Swiss food giant on Thursday cut its outlook for the year, saying it now expected its full-year sales to rise by 3.5 percent after posting an increase of 3.3 percent for the first nine months. It previously said it expected full-year organic sales to rise by around 4.2 percent.

Like other food manufacturers, the maker of KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe soluble coffee has been struggling with price deflation for its products in Europe amid fierce competition among supermarkets and weak commodity prices.

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The market is continuing its uptrend with support from banks and metals. The Sensex is up 174.96 points or 0.6 percent at 28159.33 and the Nifty is up 50.60 points or 0.6 percent at 8709.70. About 1591 shares have advanced, 822 shares declined, and 178 shares are unchanged.

ICICI Bank, Adani Ports, SBI, HDFC and Axis Bank are gainers while ITC, HUL, TCS, HDFC Bank and Dr Reddy's Labs are losers in the Sensex.

Oil prices dipped on profit taking after markets rallied the previous day due to a draw in US stocks and an expectation of an OPEC-led cut in production. Traders said that the price dips were a result of profit taking following a rally the previous day, which saw WTI settle at a 15 month high, fueled by a reduction in US crude stocks by 5.2 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 14 to 468.7 million barrels.