Volatile Nifty trades lower; NTPC, Bharti, ITC outperform

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty continued to trade lower with marginal losses due to fall in oil & gas, banks and metals stocks. European markets were flat in early trade as traders remained cautious ahead of European Central Bank's rate decision that will be at 17:15 hours IST.

The 30-share BSE Sensex plummeted 82 points to 17,175.55 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 26 points to 5,214.20. The Indian rupee too went down by 30 paise to 55.77 against the US dollar.

Oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC fell more than 1%. Commercial vehicle majors Tata Motors and M&M slipped 1-2%.

Among lenders, State Bank of India and HDFC Bank dropped over 1% while ICICI Bank was down 0.4%.

Infosys, country's second largest software services exporter, lost 0.7% while its rival TCS gained 0.3%.

Among FMCG majors, ITC rose 0.4% whereas Hindustan Unilever declined 0.4%. Telecom operator Bharti Airtel went up nearly 1%.

State-owned power producer NTPC rallied 1.8% whereas private power producer Tata Power tumbled 1.6%.

In the second line shares, CRISIL, Bayer Cropscience, Britannia, Punj Lloyd and Novartis India rallied 2.5%-3.5% whereas Shree Global, NIIT Tech, Glodyne Tech, Religare Enterprises and BASF lost 3%-6%.

Most active shares on exchanges were NIIT Tech, NTPC, SBI, United Spirits, ITC, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries and Larsen & Toubro.