FLAT OPENING

After witnessing a huge relief rally in previous session, key benchmarks have made a flat opening but, immediately slipped in the red due to fall in index heavyweight Reliance Industries, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, ONGC and Infosys. However, global cues remained supportive as the US markets rejoiced overnight after a weekend and the major indices surged on the back of strong start to the US holiday shopping season while, majority of stock markets in Asia sustained the positive momentum in Tuesday's trade. On the domestic turf, profit booking in banking, software and realty sector dampened the sentiments and BSE's Sensex and NSE's Nifty lost their crucial 16,100 and 4,850 mark respectively in the early trade. Moreover, index heavyweight Reliance Industries down by over two and a half percent after the company announced that it has initiated arbitration proceedings against the government to seek an independent view of a tribunal on the issue of the company's entitlement of recovery of entire costs on KG-D6 gas blocks from the revenue generated from the blocks. Moreover, PSU oil marketing companies viz. BPCL, HPCL and IOC edged lower in the trade on reports that the state-run refiners could cut petrol prices by about one rupee a litre. The broader indices were struggling to get some traction and were trading flat at this point of time while, the market breadth has been equally distributed; there were 764 shares on the gaining side against 757 shares on the losing side while 59 shares remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex opened at 16,210.37; about 43 points higher compared to its previous closing of 16,167.13, and has touched a low of 16,031.11 while high remain its opening.
The index is currently trading at 16,053.25, down by 113.88 points or 0.70%. There were just 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.
The overall market breadth has been evenly divided with 48.35% stocks advancing against 48.35% declines. The broader indices were trading flat; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.14% while, Small cap index was up by 0.19%.
HC up by 0.38%, CG up by 0.31% and FMCG up by 0.01% remained the only gainers in the sectoral indices on the BSE. While, Oil and Gas down by 1.86%, Bankex down by 0.64%, IT down by 0.62%, Realty down by 0.60% and Auto down by 0.50% were the top losers on the index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 2.04%, Cipla up by 1.58%, TCS up by 0.91%, BHEL up by 0.85% and L&T up by 0.28%.
On the flip side, RIL down by 2.51%, Hindalco down by 1.93%, ICICI Bank down by 1.64%, Infosys down by 1.64% and ONGC down by 1.62% were the top losers on the index.
Meanwhile, government in its bid to revive, reform and restructure the Indian handloom sector has given its go ahead to a centrally sponsored debt waiver package of Rs 38.84 billion for handloom weavers, said Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, who holds additional charge of Textiles Ministry. The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the debt restructuring package under which funds will be provided for repayment of 100 percent of principal and 25 percent of interest, which is overdue as on March 31, 2010 in respect of viable and potentially viable primary weavers` cooperative societies and apex societies.
The commerce minister also said that out of the total package, share of the Centre will be 31.37 billion while that of the state government will be Rs 7.47 billion. According to Anand Sharma, the package will benefit 13 lakh weavers, including two lakh in Uttar Pradesh, a state headed for Assembly elections next year. India's handloom sector is reeling under stress for quite some time now on account of stiff competition and credit unavailability.
The Centre had earlier announced that it would implement Rs 62.34 billion package out of which it has earmarked Rs 38.84 billion for debt restructuring and the remaining Rs 23.50 billion is for a six-fold strategy to uplift weavers during the 12th Plan (2012-17). The statement said there would be an overall ceiling of Rs 50,000 per individual beneficiary as far as funding under the scheme is concerned in respect of waiver of over-dues of individual handloom weavers. The scheme will help 15,000 weavers' cooperative societies besides individual weavers.
The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 4,864.20; about 13 points higher compared to its previous closing of 4,851.30, and has touched a high and a low of 4,864.40 and 4,812.85 respectively.
The index is currently trading at 4,815.00, down by 36.30 points or 0.75%. There were 14 stocks advancing against 36 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Steel up by 1.95%, Cipla up by 1.14%, Ranbaxy up by 1.12%, TCS up by 1.00% and Dr Reddy up by 0.97%.

On the other hand, RIL down by 2.67%, Hindalco down by 2.13%, ONGC down by 1.87%, ACC down by 1.70% and ICICI Bank down by 1.65%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite was up 13.00 points or 0.55% to 2,396.04, Hang Seng was up 83.65 points or 0.46% to 18,121.46, Jakarta Composite was up 41.65 points or 1.14% to 3,688.70, KLSE Composite was up 22.45 points or 1.57% to 1,454.00, Nikkei 225 was up 101.02 points or 1.22% to 8,388.51, Seoul Composite was up 34.83 points or 1.92% to 1,850.11 and Taiwan Weighted was up 72.54 points or 1.05% to 6,971.32.
On the flip side, Straits Times was down by 3.09 points or 0.11% to 2,691.34.