Markets slip over 1%, IT shares weigh

Markets slipped over 1% due to heavy selling in IT stocks following disappointing results by HCL Technologies and TCS.

The Nifty declined 89 points, at 5,020 and the Sensex slipped 295 points, at 16,729.

IT stocks continued to be battered by the investors. TCS, largest exporter of software services fell 7% after reported 14.7% rise in net profit y-o-y and the management said that they would refrain from raising pricing in the near term.

HCL Technologies has dipped 8% to Rs 406 after reporting 2.7% quarter-on-quarter drop in its consolidated net income to Rs 496.70 crore in first quarter ended September 2011, as per US accounting standards. Other IT stocks - Wipro and Mphasis also fell over 3%

each.

There are concerns that Foreign Institutional Investors may continue to withdraw funds as they have been selling heavily in the past few days.

FIIs sold shares worth Rs 826 crore on Monday, in the past three sessions FIIs have been net sellers of Rs 2800 crore according to the data from the Bombay Stock Exchange.

All the sectoral indices were trading in the red.

Top losers on the Sensex were Tata Motors, down 4.3%, Hindalco and Sterlite Industries slipped almost 4% each. Only six components on the Sensex were trading in the green. Coal India advanced 1.4%, Hero Motor Corp surged 0.8% and Sun Pharma fell 0.4%.

Market breadth was negative, 1528 stocks declined for 704 stocks which advanced.