India's equity mutual fund managers have kept their top-10 picks almost intact through 2014, barring three stocks. Despite being giants in their respective sectors, the three failed to make it to the most-invested stocks this year, said Value Research.

The three are telecom giant Bharti Airtel, fast-moving consumer goods major ITC and Housing Development Finance Corporation.

Benchmark share indices remained rangebound after the first hour of trade as gains in Bharti Airtel and index heavweight Reliance Industries helped offset losses in IT majors and HDFC.

At 10:45AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 64 points at 28,242 and the 50-share Nifty was up 12 points at 8,443.

Infrastructure major Larsen and Toubro (L&T Limited), which was not ready to accept the request of the Telangana government a few months ago to change the metro rail alignment, has finally agreed to change it in three locations.

According to the new changes, the track, which was earlier planned in front of the old Assembly building, will now go from behind the Assembly building.

Markets recovered from day lows as strength in Infosys, L&T and Sun Pharma managed to cap losses in HDFC twins, TCS and Bharti Airtel. At 1045 hrs, the Sensex was down 185 points at 27,994 and the Nifty was down 13 points at 8,370.

However, the broader markets gave off their morning gains and turned flat with a positive bias. The midcap index was up 0.2% while the smallcap index was near yesterday's close.

Markets started the day in green with the benchmark indices up 0.2% each in opening deals. The ones leading the opening gains were L&T, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank and ONGC.

At 0919 hrs, the Sensex was up 58 points at 28,067 and the Nifty added 12 points to trade at 8,395.

India’s second largest fund house, ICICI Prudential AMC, has emerged as the front runner for managing the exchange-traded fund (ETF) the government plans to float for disinvesting part of its holdings under the Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (Suuti).

It had bid to manage Suuti's corpus for 13 basis points (0.13 per cent of the total assets under management). The government had bids from seven asset management companies to act as manager to the ETF. These were Reliance Mutual Fund, Birla Sun Life MF, Kotak MF, SBI MF, ICICI Prudential AMC, UTI MF and Sundaram MF in a consortium with Edelweiss MF.

Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has dipped nearly 3% to Rs 1,611 in early morning deals on NSE on reports that the company management has said it might miss the annual revenue and margin forecast owing to delays in projects and problems in execution of hydrocarbon projects.

The company management has said it might miss the annual revenue and margin forecast owing to delays in projects and problems in execution of hydrocarbon projects, a Business Standard report suggests.

Engineering and construction company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has reported a seven per cent rise in its consolidated net profit for the September quarter of FY15 compared to the year-ago period. However, the company management has said it might miss the annual revenue and margin forecast owing to delays in projects and problems in execution of hydrocarbon projects.

Net profit rose to Rs 862 crore from Rs 806 crore and the result was aided by a two per cent decline in finance cost following refinancing of its long-term loan.

Markets remained rangebound with negative bias in noon trades on Monday with auto shares leading the decline on the back of weak October sales while bank shares continued to trade firm.

At 13:00hrs, the 30-share Sensex was down 21 points at 27,845 and the 50-share Nifty was trading 8 points lower at 8,314.

With an aim to enhance focus on core business, L&T Infotech, provider of IT services and solutions, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the $14.3 billion Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has completed the acquisition of Information Systems Resource Centre. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Information Systems Resource Centre (ISRC) was a subsidiary of Otis Elevator, which is a part of UTC Building & Industrial Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

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