The Indian markets have lost momentum after a strong start in the morning session as equity benchmarks had recovered marginally after 5 days of weakness. capital goods, FMCG and healthcar stockse continued to support market while IT and auto stocks dragged.
The BSE-Sensex is trading down by 94 points while the NSE-Nifty is down by 36 points. The S&P BSE Midcap and S&P BSE Smallcap indices are trading down 0.4%.
Brent crude prices dropped over 1% and are hovering near USD 61 per barrel. The rupee is trading at Rs 62.91 to the US dollar. Gold prices were trading on a negative note at Rs 26,895 per 10 grams at the bullion market today amid weak global trends.
Shares of Century Textiles surged 4% after a report suggested that the company may sell its cement business and merge it with UltraTech Cement. According to a leading financial daily, Century Textiles may carve out its cement business and merge it with Kumar Mangalam Birla led UltraTech cement in an all share deal. In a separate transaction, it was reported that ITC Ltd is in talks with Century Textiles to buy its paper division in a bid to diversify revenue to non-tobacco businesses.
IT stocks languished in red with Wipro and Hexaware Technologies being the biggest losers. HCL Technologies, the fourth largest Information Technology services provider announced results for the third quarter and nine months ended March 2015. Currency headwinds, higher investments, foreign exchange losses and completion of a major client engagement in the retail segment weighed on the March quarter's performance. The company's sales grew by 2.7% QoQ in constant currency terms. However, the company's consolidated profit after tax declined by 12% QoQ. The company reported a foreign exchange loss of Rs 1.42 bn as against a forex gain of Rs 0.15 bn in the previous quarter, which also adversely impacted the net profit. The operating performance too was disappointing. The operating profit fell 10.5% QoQ.
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