Dalal Street trades flat as Kotak, RIL drag

Kotak Mahindra tanked more than 3% and Reliance tumbled close to 2% in the initial trade.
JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Tech Mahindra were other laggards.
Crude oil prices hovering above $80 per barrel is also weighing on the markets.

Equity benchmark indices, the Nifty and the Sensex, are trading have recovered a bit and are trading in the green after a slow start on Monday. The markets is dragged down by index heavyweight Reliance Industries after the company missed street estimates due to weak performance in oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business.

At the time of publishing, the Sensex and the Nifty have recovered slightly and are trading roughly 100 and 30 points in the green respectively.

From the Sensex pack, Kotak Mahindra tanked more than 3% and Reliance tumbled close to 2% in the initial trade.

"RIL Q1 Results misses street estimates due to weak performance in oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business on account of a sharp reduction in crude oil prices and lower price realisation of downstream products," said Prashanth Tapse, Sr VP Research analyst at Mehta equities Ltd.

JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Tech Mahindra were other laggards.

On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra and Larsen & Toubro gained more than 1%. IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and Tata Motors were among other gainers.

Of the 30 stocks, 18 were trading in green while on the 50-stock index Nifty, 27 were in positive territory.

"The near-term market trend will be influenced by a host of factors like the recent Q1 results, some major results expected this week and policy decisions like the Fed meeting outcome on Wednesday," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said in his market outlook.

Foreign fund outflows and crude oil prices hovering above USD 80 per barrel also weighed on equity markets as traders were awaiting the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision to be announced this week.

Vijayakumar further noted that the Fed is likely to raise the rate by 25 bp on Wednesday, but the market movement will be decided by the commentary of the Fed chief regarding future inflation and rate trends. Investors may wait and watch these events unfold.

On Friday, both the indices settled more than 1% lower in the previous session, snapping their six-day record-breaking rally. The BSE benchmark tumbled 887.64 points or or 1.31% to settle at 66,684.26 on Friday. NSE Nifty fell by 234.15 points or 1.17% to end at 19,745.

In Asian markets, Nikkei 225 was up 1.38%, while the stock markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai were not trading.

The US markets ended broadly higher on Friday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.14% lower at USD 80.96 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were sellers on Friday as they sold equities worth Rs 1,998.77 crore, according to exchange data.