Nifty holds 8850 amid volatility; Bharti Airtel, ITC drag

Nifty holds 8850 amid volatility; Bharti Airtel, ITC drag<style>Moneycontrol Bureau

12:55 PM Open offer on cards? Diageo is going to finalise a plan on the open offer to shareholders of Indian liquor firm United Spirits this week, say sources close to the development.

The open offer will help hike Diageo’s stake in USL. Diageo’s global management team in India will take stock of its operations in India. Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes will meet bankers on the contours of USL’s open offer.

The largest distiller of the world, Diageo, may also explore other options to hike stake in USL as well, including an OFS (offer for sale).

12:43 PM Expert Speak: The 50-share Nifty has had a phenomenal rally over the last eight weeks but Gautam Shah, Associate Director & Technical Analyst at JM Financial feels “markets are now at a major inflection point”. He sees little possibility of indices hitting life time highs in the current run.

The Nifty could potentially make a short term top around 8900, and Shah believes if that happens, there could be a retracement all the way down to 8650 or even 8450-8500.

“Such retracement, if it happens, will help build a higher base and set the ball rolling for a move towards lifetime highs,” he tells CNBC-TV18 in an interview.

12:28 PM Buzzing Stock: Shares of Bajaj Electricals soared over 4 percent intraday on Tuesday as investors cheered the company’s decision to renew its licence to use ‘Morphy Richards’ trademark for five years.

“The company has as entered into a trademark licence agreement with Morphy Richards of United Kingdom to renew the exclusive license for use of trademark ‘Morphy Richards’ by the company in relation to the products procured from the manufacturers and/or imported from any other country for marketing the same in India and other countries, for a further period of five (5) years from April 25, 2017, on payment of royalty,” the company informed in a notification to the exchanges.

Also Read: Buy, sell, hold: 6 stocks likely to see lot of action today

Equity benchmark indices continued to see volatile movements in noon ahead of expiry of February derivative contracts on Thursday.

The 30-share Sensex was down 17.87 points at 28643.71 while the Nifty traded lower by 4.20 points at 8875.00. The market breadth was seen narrowing with 1,410 shares having advanced against 1,075 shares having declined.

HDFC Bank and ITC dragged the Sensex lower as they were the top negative contributors to the Sensex, while ITC and Bharti Infratel were the top negative contributors on the Nifty.

Bharti Airtel and ITC were the top losers on the Sensex. Bharti Group stocks Bharti Airtel and Bharti Infratel were the top losers. Axis Bank, Tech Mahindra and HUL were among the top gainers on Sensex and Nifty.