Domestic bourses trade flat in the early deals

Indian benchmarks have made a muted start ahead of decision by the Federal Reserve in its policy meeting today. The undertone remained slightly cautious as Asian markets were trading mixed ahead of the crucial policy announcement from the US Federal Reserve later in the day. Although Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has hinted at QE3 in recent times that the same may not be announced on Thursday. Back home, apex industry body CII has expressed their deepest concern on the industrial production numbers and asked for early implementation of non-legislative policy measures, they too have stressed on the need to cut interest rates by the Reserve Bank in order to boost the sentiment. Meanwhile, some amount of support came in from public sector oil marketing companies as shares of BPCL, HPCL and IOC all edged up by over a percent ahead of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) meet on Friday to consider some big ticket decisions on disinvestment in five major public sector undertakings. Healthcare and Metals indices are the top losers so far in the session while Oil and Gas and PSU indices are among the noteworthy leaders. Capital Goods, Auto, Banking and FMCG indices were also in the positive territory. Moreover, the broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 922 shares on the gaining side against 604 shares on the losing side while 68 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,023.95; about 23 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,000.03, and has touched a high and a low of 18,031.85 and 17,993.97 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,024.22, up by 24.19 points or 0.13%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 57.84% stocks advancing against 37.89% declines. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.25% and 0.24% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil and Gas up by 0.75%, PSU up by 0.72%, CG up by 0.67%, Auto up by 0.37% and Bankex up by 0.33%. While, HC down by 0.59%, Metal down by 0.48%, CD down by 0.26%, Realty down by 0.16% and Power down by 0.06% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.26%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.80%, ONGC up by 1.32%, ICICI Bank up by 1.18% and GAIL up by 1.17%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 2.28%, Jindal Steel was down by 1.56%, Cipla was down by 1.21%, HDFC was down by 0.92% and M&M was down by 0.70% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a great respite for the power sector companies amid slowing growth rate, the Finance Ministry has come up with a new duty structure which confirmed that Seven Ultra Mega Power Projects and 106 mega power projects will be exempted from the payment of higher duty for importing equipments, though it has suggested an effective duty of over 22%, including education cess.

The ministry notified that the UMPPs, mega power projects and expansion of existing mega projects which had received certificate of approval from the Power Ministry till July 19, 2012 will be relieved from the new levy. About 111 mega projects with permanent certificate and two with provisional ones are included in the exemption list, while three months have been provided to provisional approval holders for converting their status to permanent. It also reaffirmed that the all these mega projects have to comply with the additional power capacity requirements up to the end of 12th five year plan.

Earlier, when there was not enough capacity for ultra mega power projects, power equipment import for projects with capacity of more than 1,000 MW were exempted from basic Customs duty while projects with capacity of less than 1,000 MW were charged with basic Customs duty of 5%. Power producers such as NTPC and Tata Power have claimed that the imposition of the Customs duty will increase the project cost considerably.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,435.20; about 4 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,431.00, and has touched a high and a low of 5,437.90 and 5,425.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,435.70, down by 4.70 points or 0.09%. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.29%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.78%, ONGC up by 1.27%, ICICI Bank up by 1.25% and L&T up by 1.06%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 2.19%, Jindal Steel down by 1.56%, Cipla down by 1.34%, Sesa Goa down by 1.20% and Ranbaxy down by 1.98% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Hang Seng gained 32.35 points or 0.16% to 20,107.74, KLSE Composite was up by 7.03 points 0.44 to 1,621.01, Nikkei 225 gained 41.43 points or 0.46% to 9,001.39, Jakarta Composite was higher by 2.94 points or 0.07% to 4,177.04 and Taiwan Weighted gained 12.64 points or 0.17% to 7,583.07.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite was down by 6.14 points or 0.29% to 2,120.41, Kospi Composite was down by 4.26 points or 0.22% to 1,945.77 and Straits Times lost 15.50 points or 0.51% to 3,015.34.