Mid-day market trade: Nifty recovers around 100 pts from day’s low; TCS trades flat ahead of Q1 results

Indian equities extended their previous day’s fall amid profit booking. Nevertheless, in the mid-market trade there was some recovery from day’s low as the earnings season is set to kickstart later today. The Nifty index at the last count traded with a cut of 0.14 per cent at 24,290.5, recouping nearly 100 points, while the BSE Sensex traded lower by 0.17 per cent at 79,790 points. Meanwhile, the broader markets outperformed the headline indices with minor gains.

Nifty Bank, the gauge of the banking sector’s performance, also fell and was last down by 0.5 per cent, trading over 450 points lower from the day's high levels of 52,4

Within the Nifty 50 pack, Coal India, BPCL, ONGC, Tata Motors and ITC emerged as the top gainers, while laggards from the basket included stocks like Nestle India, Bajaj Finance , NTPC, Shriram Finance and Sun Pharma.

Sectorally, of the 16 major sectoral indices, realty pack emerged as the top loser with losses of over 1.5 per cent, followed by pharma and banking pack. While gains in the oil & gas and consumer durables sectors capped the downside.

The IT pack traded flat with a negative bias as the sector is set to kickstart earnings show, with the release of TCS Q1 results later today.

Shares of HPL Electric gained significantly up to 15 per cent as te company announced that it won a smart meters order worth Rs 2,000.7 crore. 

Zomato shares, in trade today, clocked its new record high of Rs 218.9. The spurt in the stock price is largely attributed to the company 's strong financials.

European markets traded in the green, with French CAC index gaining the most by as much as 0.67 per cent ahead of the key US CPI inflation data due to be released later today.