Market Live: Sensex erases opening gains, Nifty hovers around 9650; IT stocks drag

9:57 am Market Update:

Equity benchmarks erased opening gains due to further selling in technology, oil and select banks stocks. Investors maintained cautious stance ahead of UK elections and Comey testimony.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 31.13 points at 31,240.15 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 12.30 points to 9,651.60.
TCS fell 2.4 percent as Nomura downgraded the stock to reduce from neutral, with implied downside of 18 percent, citing mismatch between fundamentals and recent stock price rise.
Infosys extended losses, down 1 percent on top of 3 percent correction in previous session on pricing concerns.
ITC, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, SBI and ONGC were other losers whereas HDFC, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel, HUL, Tata Motors and L&T continued to support the market.

9:40 am Buzzing:

 Petronet LNG shares fell as much as 4.3 percent in morning trade Thursday after CNBC-TV18 reports said France-based investor offloaded its entire stake in the company.
Company's 7.6 crore equity shares (representing 10 percent of paid-up equity) traded on exchanges in the price range of Rs 424.90-430.15 in opening today.
GDF International proposed to divest its entire shareholding of 10 percent in the company for USD 512 million.
GDF, which distributes and markets liquefied natural gas, informed exchanges in March 2017 about its divestment to each of the promoter stating that it proposed to offer to each of the promoter a first right of purchase/refusal in relation to the proposed stake sale in the same proportion in which the promoter are holding equity shares in the company.
The Government of India through companies like ONGC, IOC, GAIL and BPCL has 50 percent shareholding in the company while the rest is held by public as of March 2017. GDF International was the largest shareholder among public.

9:25 am FII View: 

Mahesh Nandurkar of CLSA said Nifty trades at 18x 1-year forward or 20 percent premium to the last 10-year average and comes up as the key investor concern in most discussions.
Higher inflows are the reason for premium valuations, he feels.
Historical flow analysis implies if monthly net inflow remains at or above USD 400 million, the uptrend should continue, he said, adding this is also a base case assuming continued strong domestic flows, doubling of equity offering partially offset by higher buybacks over the next 12 months.
He feels the key risk is much higher equity raising than anticipated. Higher valuations, however, make the market look farther ahead, bringing the potential capex cycle recovery in sight, Nandurkar said.