The rupee is weak reacting to the dollar strength while government bonds are in a tight range ahead of the Rs 15000 crore auction tomorrow and inflation data next week.

Axis Capital’s big bets for 2014 are large cap IT, “vice-industry???, telecom, private sector energy majors and select pharmaceutical names, says managing director, Institutional Equity Research, Nandan Chakraborty. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Chakraborty says he sees agri-inflation receding in the coming weeks as the government steps up its drive against hoarders in the run-up to the general elections.

Reversing the declining trend, Reliance Industries has ramped up gas production at KG-D6 fields by about 15 percent as it added the first production well on the eastern offshore fields in almost four years, reports PTI. RIL on January 2 began production from the MA-8 well to ramp up output from the KG-D6 block to about 13.7 million standard cubic meters per day, officials said. RIL and its partners BP Plc of UK and Canada’s Niko Resources had last month spud the seventh well on the MA oil and gas field in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the Krishna Godavari basin.

The market is listless ahead of Infosys third quarter earnings announcement. The Sensex is down 16.31 points at 20713.07, and the Nifty down 7.85 points at 6166.75. About 1105 shares have advanced, 905 shares declined, and 410 shares are unchanged.

Sesa Sterlite is up 4 percent while other gainers NTPC, Dr Reddy’s Labs, ONGC, Coal India. Top losers in the Sensex are Axis Bank, Hindalco, L&T, ITC and SBI. The rupee is weak reacting to the dollar strength while government bonds are in a tight range ahead of the Rs 15000 crore auction tomorrow and inflation data next week.

Asian markets are mixed with losses led by the Japanese markets. China’s CPI slowed to 2.5 percent in December compared to estimates of 2.7 percent. Gold is mostly flat after losing for the past two sessions while Brent prices are stable.

The dollar index has strengthened to seven month highs while Asian currencies such as the Indonesian rupiah, Philippine peso and Chinese yuan weakened slightly.