Sensex trades flat amid selling in midcap stocks

 June 26 (IANS) Indian equity benchmarks opened flat on Wednesday following selling pressure on midcap stocks. At 9:42 a.m., Sensex was up 49 points or 0.06 per cent, at 78,103 and Nifty was down 11 points or 0.05 per cent, at 23,709. The Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 75 points or 0.13 per cent to 55,294 and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 41 points or 0.23 per cent to 18,284. UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, L&T, Tata Motors, NTPC, Kotak Mahindra and TCS are the top gainers. M&M, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank, JSW Steel and Sun Pharma are the top losers. Among the sectoral indices, Auto, PSU Bank, Pharma, Fin Service, FMCG and Realty are major laggards. IT, Energy, Media and Commodity Indices are major gainers. According to the experts, "The 16 per cent credit growth in the economy and improving asset quality of these stocks augur well for them. Slight pressure on margins due to slow deposit growth and higher costs of deposits are unlikely to impact the bottom line significantly. From the valuation perspective, PSU banks now provide buying opportunities." "Q1 results of financials, oil and gas, capital goods, automobiles, select pharma and telecom will be good. FMCG and IT will post subdued numbers as expected," they added. Most of the markets in Asia are bullish. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul and Jakarta are in the green. However, the Shanghai market is in the red. US markets closed mixed on Tuesday. Crude oil benchmark Brent crude is at $84.64 per barrel and WTI crude is at $81.25 per barrel.