Nifty Trades Flat, ONGC Drops

The Nifty and the Sensex opened the day flat, even as most global markets were subdued. Overnight the Dow Jones ended the day with gains, however, Dow Futures were pointing lower for openings on Wednesday.

The Nifty was trading with gains of 2 points, at 10,304 points. Banking stocks like ICICI Bank and State Bank of India were seeing some early gains in trade.

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation saw its shares drop by more than 2 per cent after the company posted a net loss of Rs 3,098.26 crore for the quarter ended March due to an exceptional item towards impairment.

Among the early gainers in trade from the Nifty were UPCL, BPCL and Bharti Airtel. Auto stocks like Bajaj Auto and Mahindra and Mahindra were higher, ahead of auto sales numbers to be declared later today.

Zee Entertainment, Kotak Mahindra Bank and NTPC were among the early losers from the Nifty space.

Shares in Bharti Airtel gained ground after reports that the Carlyle Group will buy a 25 percent stake in its data centre business for $235 million. Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading subdued with the Japanese Nikkei losing 100 points, while the Hang Sang and the Korean Kospi were little changed.