Markets marginally up amid alternate bouts of buying and selling

Indian equity markets continued trading marginally up amid alternate bouts of buying and selling. BSE Sensex and wide-based NSE Nifty were trading quiet but stayed in the positive territory, aided by Asian markets. In currency markets, Indian rupee pared some early gains and currently trading flat against dollar, in the late morning session. Moreover, in order to prevent a sharp fall in the rupee, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed exporters to access the foreign exchange market without having to first exhaust funds in their foreign currency accounts. On the sectoral front, realty stocks were back in demand after suffering some sharp losses in the previous session. Select metal, TECk, bank and capital goods stocks were trading higher, while power, information technology, oil and automobile stocks were mostly subdued. In global markets, most Asian markets were trading down, in spite of a Wall Street rally, with Tokyo extending the previous day's fall as the yen strengthened following a Bank of Japan monetary policy shift. Back home, the market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 1,086 shares on the gaining side against 1,362 shares on the losing side while 136 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20,011.85 up by 30.28 points or 0.15% after trading in a range of 20,055.07 and 19,991.88. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.12% and Small cap index was down by 0.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.94%, TECk up by 0.48%, Bankex up by 0.20%, Capital Goods up by 0.17% and Health Care up by 0.17%. While, Consumer Durables down by 0.72%, Auto down by 0.61%, Oil & Gas down 0.44%, PSU down 0.32% and Power down by 0.29% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.84%, ITC up by 1.35%, HDFC Bank up by 1.14%, Cipla up by 1.08% and HDFC up by 0.95%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 4.43%, Tata Motors was down by 2.07%, ONGC was down by 0.92%, Hindalco was down by 0.92% and TCS was down by 0.83% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, ahead of next week's monetary policy has said that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) must strike a balance between needs of pushing growth and controlling inflation. In order to contain inflation, the RBI has refrained from lowering interest rates despite nudging by Finance and Commerce ministries that it should take steps to address concerns on growth.

RBI is scheduled to announce its third quarter review of monetary policy on January 29 amid demands by the industry that it should lower interest rates to boost industrial output, which contracted by 0.1 percent in November. Before announcing the policy, the RBI Governor holds a customary meeting with the Finance Minister.

The Mumbai-headquartered central bank has, at many occasions, said inflation should be at around 5 percent. In its December policy review, the RBI had kept the key interest rate (repo rate) unchanged on concerns of inflation, but provided sufficient hints that it would reduce it in January.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,052.65 up by 4.15 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 6,069.80 and 6,049.40. There were 25 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index and one remains unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 3.61%, DLF up by 1.68%, UltraTech Cement up by 1.44%, Asian Paints up by 1.27% and ITC up by 1.26%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 4.60%, NTPC down by 1.28%, HCL Tech down by 2.32%, Tata Motors down by 2.10%, IDFC down by 1.87% and BPCL down by 1.57%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite down by 0.52%, Hang Seng down by 0.46%, Jakarta Composite declined 0.08%, Nikkei 225 declined 1.52%, KOSPI Composite declined 0.26%, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.34%.

On the flip side KLSE Composite up by 0.33% and Straits Times up by 0.27%.