Sensex, Nifty see profit booking; mid, smallcap outperform

Moneycontrol Bureau12:45 pm IOC in News: Indian Oil Corp and Oil India are in talks with Russia's Rosneft to buy up to a 29 percent stake in a Siberian oil project, two sources said, as New Delhi accelerates a push to secure overseas energy assets.

India, the world's fourth-biggest oil consumer, has to ship in three quarters of its oil needs and with oil prices close to their lowest since the global financial crisis has added incentive to seal purchases to limit import reliance.

The deal, which could be worth around USD 1 billion based on the valuation of a recent stake purchase, is expected to take final shape during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow next week for summit talks with President Vladimir Putin, said the sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

12:25 pm Buzzing: Investors continued to buy shares of Tata Power as the private power generation company has tied up with renewable energy company for wind project in Andhra Pradesh. The stock gained more than 1 percent intraday.

"Tata Power and Gamesa India has entered into a contract for commissioning 100 MW turnkey wind project in Andhra Pradesh," says the Tata Group company in its filing to exchanges.

This project will entail supply, erection and commissioning of 50 units of wind turbines at Nimbagallu site in AP by May 2017, it adds.

Apart from this order, Gamesa is also contracted to offer long term operations and maintenance agreement to ensure smooth functioning of wind farm.

Additionally, the stock surged 4 percent in previous session after Tata Power has completed uprating of second transmission line between Kalwa and Salsette for Mumbai.12:10 pm Mid-year economic review: The government will stick to its budgeted fiscal deficit target of 3.9 percent of GDP for the fiscal year ending in March 2016, the finance ministry said in a report today.

The government hopes to hit the target without cutting expenditure or deferring tax refunds, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said earlier this week.

In the budget in February, Jaitley had pledged to narrow the deficit to 3.9 percent of GDP in this fiscal year from 4.0 percent in 2014/15.Also read - Park funds into corrected largecaps: Birla Sun Life AMC12:00 pm Market Check

The market continued to see profit booking in noon trade but the broader markets outperformed benchmarks. Technology, healthcare, metals and select banking & financials dragged.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 144.05 points or 0.56 percent to 25659.73 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 42.20 points or 0.54 percent to 7802.15. However, the BSE Midcap gained 0.5 percent and Smallcap rose 0.2 percent.

The market breadth remained positive as about 1259 shares advanced against 1097 declining shares on the BSE.