Trades Listless, Bharti Airtel Hammered 5%

The Indian equity markets are off their day’s high and are trading volatile ahead of Thursday’s F&O expiry. Capital Goods and Power stocks are lending support to the indices, whereas Auto counters are witnessing a sell-off. After touching a high of 5634.45, the Nifty is trading with marginal gains of 11 points at 5620 and Sensex is up by 19 points at 18,649.

The advance-decline ratio is on the negative side in the afternoon session. On the NSE, 625 shares are trading in the red and 561 shares are in green.

Top 5 Nifty Gainers: Power Grid Corporation is the top gainer in the afternoon trading session, up by 2.81%. Axis Bank, DLF, Tata Consultancy Services and GAIL are the others in the list.

Top 5 Nifty Losers: Bharti Airtel is trading down by 5.38%, followed by Ranbaxy Labs, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

10 out of 13 sectors are currently trading in the green. IT and Power are the top gainer, up over 1% each. Auto is the strongest loser, lower by 1.77%.

On the global front, it has been another mixed day for Asian stocks. The Hang Seng is trading higher by 1.65% at 20,188, followed by Taiwan Weighted, Straits Times and KOSPI. On other hand, Japan’s Nikkei 225 is lower by 1.05%, followed by Shanghai Composite.

Buzzers: Reliance Capital has rallied almost 5% on the back of heavy volumes after the Anil Ambani-promoted NBFC has said that it will submit an application for a banking license with the RBI.

Bharti Airtel has dipped more than 5%, erasing its previous day’s gains of 4% on reports that the Ministry of Telecom has approved a penalty of Rs 650 crore on the company for violating roaming norms in 13 services areas between 2003 and 2005.

The Nifty has crucial support around 5590-5600. Once it breaches this level, it may slide down to the levels of 5570-5550.