STILL CAUTIOUS

Sentiment continued to remain bearish for third day in a row and Indian key benchmarks were trading flat with negative bias after a positive opening on the back of negative global cues. US stocks fell overnight as political turmoil in Europe cast doubts on the euro zone's ability to push through measures to end its debt crisis. While, Asian counters too witnessing sluggish trade at this point of time. Back home, earnings continued to be in focus with investors rewarding companies that have met street estimates in the March quarter. Meanwhile, TCS, India's biggest software exporter, surged over 8 percent in early trade after Q4 profit rose 1.5 percent sequentially against expectations of a decline. Telecom stocks like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication and Idea all edged lower after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India proposed a high reserve price for telecom spectrum to be auctioned, at nearly Rs 3,622 crore per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band for GSM services. Moreover, the broader indices slipped in the negative terrain. The market breadth on the BSE was equally divided; there were 757 shares on the gaining side against 769 shares on the losing side while 72 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,154.75; about 58 points higher compared to its previous closing of 17,096.68, and has touched a high and a low of 17,167.02 and 17,056.28 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,091.07, down by 5.61 points or 0.03%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The overall market has been evenly divided with 47.37% stocks advancing against 48.12% declines. The broader indices were slipped in the red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices dipped 0.31% and 0.09% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 2.10%, TECk up by 0.69%, Power up by 0.19%, CD up by 0.19% and Metal up by 0.11%. While, Oil and Gas down by 0.66%, CG down by 0.53%, FMCG down by 0.45%, Auto down by 0.29% and Realty down by 0.13% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 8.92%, Wipro up by 1.96%, Hindalco up by 1.56%, Tata Power up by 1.08% and Cipla up by 0.81%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 5.15%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.48%, DLF was down by 1.38%, Infosys was down by 1.30% and RIL was down by 1.08% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has stated that India has substantially reduced its oil imports from Iran. FM also stated that the country is facing immense problems due to the rise in the prices of crude oil.

A day after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Mukherjee has pointed out that India's import of oil from the sanction-hit country has reduced substantially, in the backdrop of US's objections that India had failed to reduce its purchases from Tehran.

The FM has clarified that India is currently importing about 14 million tonnes of crude from Iran which in percentage terms is much lesser than earlier. When India imported 100 million tones, Iran would contribute 20-21 million tones. Now the crude oil imports have shot up to 160-170 million tonnes out of which only 14 million are sourced from Iran.

Mukherjee also observed that the country is going through significant hardship due to rising prices of oil. Noting that while presenting the budget last year the government subsidies had been worked out on the assumption that the average oil price would be $90-95 per barrel. But actually average price of has turned out to be $100-115 per barrel, increasing the quantum of subsidy substantially.

The demand for crude oil has been considerably rising in the developing countries, especially India and China. India's oil imports are expected to be more than triple from 2005 levels by 2020, rising to 5 million barrels per day. However supply is getting affected due to American sanctions on Iran. India has so far maintained that Iranian oil is important for its economy and hence it would not stop importing from war torn country. In fact India has used the opportunity to increase bilateral trade between the two countries. However, with the recent statement by the FM it seems that some of the US pressure is weighing on India.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,215.90; about 15 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,200.60, and has touched a high and a low of 5,221.60 and 5,185.00 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,196.50, down by 4.10 points or 0.08%. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were TCS up by 8.44%, HCL Tech up by 2.45%, Wipro up by 1.93%, Siemens up by 1.92% and Hindalco up by 1.60%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 5.22%, RCom down by 2.39%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.51%, DLF down by 1.43% and Infosys down by 1.37%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite crumbled 33.42 points or 1.40% to 2,355.17, Hang Seng declined 82.71 points or 0.40% to 20,541.68, Jakarta Composite slipped 6.95 points or 0.17% to 4,148.54, KLSE Composite dipped 3.30 points or 0.21% to 1,580.50, Nikkei 225 tumbled 115.64 points or 1.21% to 9,426.53, Seoul Composite contracted 15.10 points or 0.77% to 1,957.53 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 5.07 points or 0.07% to 7,476.02.

On the flip side, Straits Times was up by 9.40 points or 0.32% to 2,971.75.