With brick and mortar stocks taking centre stage, the IT stocks took a backseat with many of the frontline IT shares losing steam in morning trade on Friday.

Probably that the rupee has been gaining strength and many of the IT stocks had made substantial gains in recent months could have weighed with the investors. But the fact that the fundamentals of the economy had not changed much could still be a factor that investors would have to consider once the pre-poll momentum slows down, despite the fact that there were some favourable indicators such as an easing of CAD and strong FII inflows.

TCS lost Rs 66.65 to trade at Rs 2,174.10, Infosys was down by Rs 40.90 at Rs 3,791, HCL Tech shed Rs 26.85 to trade at Rs 1,465, MindTree was trading at Rs 1,570, a loss of Rs 29.70, TechMahindra was down by Rs 44 to Rs 1,879 and Wipro lost Rs 14.85 to trade at Rs 570. The CNX IT index was down by about 190 points even as the market was booming with the Nifty up by about 50 points.

Stocks in the banking and capital goods sectors were some of the major gainers. L&T touched a new yearly high as did GAIL. GAIL touched a new yearly high of Rs 387 before easing to Rs 384.35, L&T roared to a new yearly high of Rs 1,223 before shedding some value to Rs 1,211.35 and Voltas was another stock to touch a new 52-week high of Rs 148.50 on the NSE.

SBI was up by Rs 59.60 at Rs 1637, ICICI Bank gained Rs 42.70 to trade at Rs 1176.65 and Reliance was up by Rs 17.75 at Rs 840.20.

The rupee was trading at Rs 61.02 against the US dollar.

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