A RANGE BOUND SESSION

Indian benchmarks showed some signs of recovery in Wednesday's session as they closed higher after consolidating for two successive sessions. However, the drastic slump in market turnover which was even lower than the weak volumes recorded in the two previous sessions indicates the lack of interest from market participants which is a sign of worry. This prolonged lull in markets can also be attributed to the slew of announcements on the economy and assembly elections results which are due this week. The frontline indices have formed a base around the psychological 5,550 and 18,550 levels and are showing little signs of budging from those levels despite the amount of volatility seen in the markets. The undertone continued to remain cautious amid macroeconomic headwinds like inflationary pressure and rising borrowing. Meanwhile, reports that the meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to consider hiking fuel prices is postponed by a week and will be held by May 17-18 gave some respite to PSU oil marketing companies like BPCL and IOC which settled after surging around a percent point. On the global front, cues remained supportive as majority of Asian markets snapped the session on a positive note while the European counterparts too got off to a positive start and are currently trading with gains of around half a percent. The decline in international crude oil prices also supported to the local sentiments. The NSE's 50-share broadly followed index Nifty accumulated moderate gains and settled above the psychological 5,5500 level while Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index, or Sensex too finished with reasonable gains below the psychological 18,600 level. The broader markets on the other hand showed some resilience and managed to outclass the larger peers by quite a margin. The midcap index rose 0.56% while the smallcap index climbed 0.73%. On the sectoral front, the high beta Realty pocket grabbed the top gainers position after soaring 1.40% due to rally in stocks like DLF and HDIL which surged 2.46% and 2.28% respectively. While the Metal counter too remained amid the thick of things and ended with gains of 1.01% because of 1.47% gains in Sterlite Industries and 3.24% gains in JSW Steel. On the other hand only Capital Goods index languished in the negative terrain with trivial losses of 0.03% as stocks like L&T and Thermax slipped by 1% and 2.69% respectively. Moreover, negative close for bellwethers like ONGC, NTPC, Tata Power and Maruti Suzuki kept the upside for the markets under check. On the result front, stocks like Ranbaxy, Oracle Financial Services, IKF Technologies and ABB got commended by the investors in the session.

On the global front, most Asian equity indices settled in the green terrain on the back of rising global commodity prices, but many of the indices were off their morning highs after inflation data in China indicated further tightening measures from Beijing. The European indices are trading on an optimistic note as the France's CAC 40 advanced by 0.45%, Germany's DAX garnered 0.74% and London's FTSE 100 rose 0.21%. On the other hand, the screen trading for US index futures too indicated that the Dow could open on a positive note.

Earlier on Dalal Street, the benchmark got off to a quiet start shrugging leads from the Asian equity indices which mostly traded on a positive note as investors in the region largely remained influenced by the Wall Street which extended uptrend for third straight session on the back of good earnings announcements and some big corporate deals. After hitting intraday lows in the early hours, the frontline indices pared all the losses and moved into the green zone on the back of buying in real estate, automobile and metal stocks. However, the session largely remained characterized by choppiness as investors seemed reluctant to pile up hefty positions ahead of IIP and WPI data along with the outcome of assembly polls due this week and indulged only in stock centric activities through the session. Eventually the bourses snapped session with a positive bias and settled around the psychological levels of 5,550 and 18,600. Markets consolidated on volumes of over Rs 0.88 lakh crore while the turnover for NSE F&O segment remained lower compared to Tuesday at over 0.76 lakh crore. Market breadth remained positive as there were 1611 shares on the gaining side against 1193 shares on the losing side while 131 shares remained unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 72.19 points or 0.39% to settle at 18,584.96 while the S&P CNX Nifty rose by 23.80 points or 0.43% to end at 5,565.05.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 18,622.44 and 18,454.93 respectively. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap index advanced by 0.56% and 0.73% respectively.

Hero Honda up 3.31%, DLF up 2.46%, Tata Motors up 1.85%, SBI up 1.78% and Reliance Infrastructure up 1.48% were major gainers on the Sensex.

On the flip side, NTPC down 1.86%, Tata Power down 1.39%, ONGC down 1.30%, Maruti Suzuki down 1.14% and L&T down 0.98% were the major losers on the index.

In its bid to take up new projects under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP), a flagship programme of the Indian government, the Ministry of Power has released Rs 4,029 crore. The projects are expected to be taken up in two parts, the Part-A will be for establishing IT enabled systems for energy accounting/ auditing and SCADA for big cities while the Part-B will be for regular distribution upgradation and strengthening projects.

According to the official statement released by the power ministry, Rs 3,903 crore is in form of loan for disbursement to state utilities out of the total released amount, while Rs 126 crore as grant against enabling component for implementation of R-APDRP. The Union Power Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde too was content with the programme's progress and opined that all the States and Union Territories have invited Request for Proposals (RFPs) for appointing IT implementing agencies for executing Part-A projects. Up till now 21 States and Union Territories have already appointed IT implementing agencies.

The statement also highlighted that, while the Part-A projects worth Rs 5,177 crore covering almost all the eligible 1,401 towns have already been sanctioned, an additional 28 SCADA projects worth Rs 669 crore have also been sanctioned in six states including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Besides this, 823 projects worth Rs 15,975 crore have been approved in 14 states including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana under Part-B.

The government launched the R-APDRP in July 2008, in the XIth Five Year Plan with an objective of reduction of AT&C losses to 15% in project areas. The programme spans from data acquisition at distribution level to monitoring of results of steps taken to provide an IT backbone and strengthening of the Electricity Distribution system across the country under the programme. The programme covers towns and cities with population more than 30,000 (10,000 for special category States).

Realty up 1.40%, Metal up 1.01%, Auto up 0.95%, Consumer Durables (CD) up 0.72% and IT up 0.69%, were major gainers in the BSE sectoral space. Capital Goods (CG) down 0.03% was only loser in the BSE sectoral space.

India and New Zealand have concluded very successful the two day talks on the roadmap to propel forward trade and economic relationship between the two nations and accelerate the process of Free Trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. Citing the below potential economic linkages between the two countries, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Anand Sharma and his New Zealand counterpart jointly underscored the need to ramp up the two-way trade between the nations to $3 billion annually by 2014 from the existing $1.2 billion a year, with combined efforts and reduced trade barriers.

Both ministers have committed to an eight to ten months timetable for establishing the Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA) in trade, investment and services which will be "much more than just a Free Trade Agreement." The Indian commerce minister, who is leading a FICCI business delegation in New Zealand, emphasized upon the trade complementarities in the agricultural sector and stressed upon deepening the relationship between the two countries in the services trade, bilateral investment, innovation and technology transfer. He invited co-operation in the fields of pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, textiles, spice trade and film making.

Sharma indicated that India's service sector constituted a major portion of GDP as well as exports and consequently India hoped that New Zealand would provide a growing market for India's IT enabled service sector. He mentioned that productivity in agriculture in India is still low and accordingly India was looking for technical solutions to enhance its productivity. Sharma noted that India welcomed investment in a broad range of sectors, including agri-processing, food processing, post-harvest technology transfer in refrigeration, cold chains, storage and logistics for minimizing post production losses. He specifically stressed that the Indian pharmaceutical industry has established itself in world markets for its high quality, at the same time ensuring availability of generics in a manner that makes health care more affordable for vulnerable sections of the world population.

India is experiencing a rapid economic growth of around 8% - 9% of each year, while New Zealand struggles to grow by as much as 2% annually. New Zealand's Trade Minister Tim Groser highlighted their nation's interests in enhancing the export of agricultural products, including dairy, horticulture and wine and industrial goods, over and above the traditional export of coking coal and wood from New Zealand to India. New Zealand also wants India to lower tariff barriers that add costs to export items like wool for carpet-making.

The S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 5,574.70 and 5,525.00 respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Ranbaxy up 6.14%, Hero Honda up 3.56%, DLF up 2.52%, Reliance Infrastructure up 2.11% and Tata Motors up 2.09%.

The top losers on the index were NTPC down 2.52, Tata Power down 1.88, L&T down 1.42%, IDFC down 1.33% and ONGC down 1.33%.

European markets were trading in green. France's CAC 40 up 0.51%, Germany's DAX rose by 0.77% and Britain's FTSE 100 was trading higher by 0.14%.

Most of the Asian equity indices finished the day's trade in the positive terrain on Wednesday on the back of rising global commodity prices, but many of the indices were off their morning highs after inflation data in China indicated further tightening measures from Beijing. Chinese Shanghai edged lower in the trade as the country's consumer price inflation consumer price inflation (CPI) missed market forecasts for a decline to 5.2 percent. The headline CPI slowed to 5.3 percent in April from a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in March. However, Japanese Nikkei gained about half a percent as companies reported improving earnings and a weaker yen boosted exporters' prospects.