Markets fall ahead of Budget, Economic Survey, Idea jumps 7%

Domestic markets on Tuesday opened in red ahead of Union Budget which is scheduled on February 1. At 0945 hours Sensex was trading at 27,711.61, down 137.95 points or 0.50%, while, Nifty was at 8,587.25, down 45.50 points or 0.53%. 

On 30-share benchmark, among top gainers were ONGC (1.88%), Bharti Airtel (1.42%), Power Grid (0.73%), Tata Steel (0.58%) and ITC (0.23%). Among losers were GAIL (-2.85%), Coal India (-2.73%), Tata Motors (-1.65%), Infosys (-1.56%) and TCS (-1.18%).

Rising for the fifth straight day, the rupee advanced by another 11 paise to 67.84 against the dollar in early trade today on increased selling of the US currency by banks and exporters.

Stocks in focus:

Bajaj Finance: The company on Monday reported a net profit of Rs 555.6 crore during the quarter ended on December 31, a jump of 36% as compared to Rs 408.4 crore during the same period last year. 

At 0935 hours the shares of the company were trading at Rs 1062.75 per piece, up 0.62% or Rs 6.55 on BSE.

Idea Cellular: On Monday, Vodafone confirmed that it is in talks with Idea Cellular's parent company Aditya Birla Group for merger. If successful, the combined entity will be India's largest private sector telecom company displacing Bharti Airtel from its numero uno position. 

At 0937 hours the shares of the company were trading at Rs 105 per piece, up 7.20% or Rs 7.05 on BSE. 

HDFC: On Monday, Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) surpassed analyst estimates by reporting 12% year-on-year rise in net profit in its third quarter ended December 31, 2016. The housing finance service provider reported standalone net profit of Rs 1701.21 crore, a rise of 11.88% from Rs 1520.51 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Wipro: On Monday the company had announced a strategic partnership with Tradeshift, to offer cloud-based Source-to-Pay (S2P) Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) solution. 

The partnership aims to help customers accelerate digitalisation and automation in their procurement, finance and accounting functions. 

At 0937 hours the shares of the company were trading at Rs 460.25 per piece, down 0.95% or Rs 4.40 on BSE.

Quarterly results today: ICICI Bank, InterGlobe Aviation, Dabur, ONGC, Welspun India and Bajaj Auto will be announcing their financial results for the quarter ended on December 31.