Sensex southbound; TCS, Wipro, HUL, Tata Steel outperform

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At 10:16 hours IST - the 30-share BSE Sensex was trading lower on the back of profit booking in banking & financial, realty, cement, oil & gas exploration, select capital goods and power stocks.

Weak Asian cues as well as likely increase in inflation numbers were the reasons for today's sell-off. CNBC-TV18 poll sees February inflation at 9.78% as against 8.56% on month-on-month basis.

Asian markets were weak in trade. Shanghai was down 1.16%. Hang Seng, Kospi and Taiwan fell 0.85% each. Nikkei and Straits Times were flat. However, Jakarta gained 0.57%.

However, buying in TCS, Wipro, HUL, Tata Steel, HCL Tech, NTPC, HDFC Bank, ITC, Sterlite, Reliance Communications, Jaiprakash Associates and Tata Motors capped the losses to major extent.

The Sensex was trading at 17123, down 43 points and the Nifty was at 5120, down 17 points. The market breadth was negative; about 418 shares advanced while 777 shares declined on the NSE.

In the midcap space, Future Capital, ING Vysya Bank, Godrej Consumer, Whirlpool and Blue Star gained 2-7% while KS Oils, Triveni Engg and Jain Irrigation slipped 4.4-5.6%.

In the smallcap space, Transport Corp, C & C Construction, Sadbhav Engg, Hitachi Home and Maharashtra Scooters went up 5-10% while Atco Corp, Sanwaria Agro, Maharashtra Polybutenes and OCL Iron lost 5-6.7%

Sesa Goa, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Ackruti City, Texmo Pipes, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries and JSW Steel were the most active shares on the bourses.