POSITIVE START

Indian benchmarks have made a flat-to-positive start tracking quite trade across Asia ahead of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. Globally, investors are waiting for the outcome of Federal Reserve statement that will be announced later in the day. Moreover, the US markets rallied on Tuesday on hopes that additional fiscal stimulus is forthcoming from the Federal Reserve while, all the Asian counters barring Chinese Shanghai were trading in the positive terrain at this point of time. Back home, BSE's -- Sensex -- regained its crucial 16,900 mark, supported by most of the index heavyweights along with broader indices. On sectoral front, consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by metal and power while, software and technology remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. Meanwhile, cement stocks were battered in early trade as market-men expected the Competition Commission of India to pass an order penalizing cement companies for cartelization. All Ambuja Cement, ACC and Ultratech Cement edged lower in the trade. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive. 

The BSE Sensex opened at 16,903.96; about 44 points higher compared to its previous closing of 16,859.80, and has touched a high and a low of 16,940.55 and 16,864.64 respectively. The index is currently trading at 16,914.00, up by 54.20 points or 0.32%. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.47% and 0.43% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CD up by 1.18%, Metal up by 1.00%, Power up by 0.98%, CG up by 0.90% and HC up by 0.80%. While IT down by 0.13% and TECk down by 0.08% remained the few losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 2.38%, Tata Motors up by 1.97%, Dr Reddy up by 1.82%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.54% and BHEL up by 1.49%.

On the flip side, Coal India was down by 0.60%, TCS was down by 0.57%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.39%, HDFC Bank was down by 0.35% and Bajaj Auto was down by 0.34% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Mexico for the seventh Summit of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations, while addressing the Plenary Session in Los Cabos exuded confidence in India's economic growth prospects and vowed that his government was determined to employ tough measures like reigning in the burgeoning subsidy burden, to bring the flagging economy back to high growth trajectory. With fundamentals of the Indian economy remaining strong, he expressed confidence of bringing back the rhythm of high growth of 8-9 percent per annum.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that Asia's third largest economy has slowed down in tandem with other emerging economies as global downturn and especially the impact on capital flows have had an adverse impact on the economy. He also went ahead to underscore that internal constraints too have affected performance and efforts are on to correct them. Indicating that 6.5% growth in India's gross domestic product in 2011-12 was reasonable figure, given growth rates being experienced in the rest of the world, he stated that Indian citizens are growing impatient for a return to high growth and faster jobs creation.

The government is also taking steps to revive investor sentiment as investment in the country has been affected by the adverse global climate, which impacts both foreign and domestic investors. Singh said that the government is taking various initiatives including making transparent and stable policies designed to provide a level playing field to both domestic and foreign investors, to create an environment that would boost investor sentiment and promote an atmosphere conducive to enterprise and creativity.

In an attempt to improve global investment sentiment and counter perceptions that the government is in policy paralysis, Singh called had upon a meeting of key infrastructure ministries and set ambitious targets as he rooted for infrastructure led economic recovery. After the meeting with ministers of Power, Railways, Roads, Shipping, Civil Aviation and Coal, Manmohan Singh had set an investment target of at least Rs 2 lakh crore for core sector projects in the current fiscal.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,114.55; about 11 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,103.85, and has touched a high and a low of 5,126.35 and 5,106.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,118.80, higher by 14.95 points or 0.29%. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 2.80%, Tata Motors up by 2.16%, HCL Tech up by 1.96%, Sesa Goa up by 1.89% and Reliance Infra up by 1.50%.

On the flip side, Ambuja Cement down by 3.09%, ACC down by 1.78%, Coal India down by 0.67%, TCS down by 0.58% and JP Associates down by 0.57%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian markets were trading in the green; Hang Seng was up 85.82 points or 0.44% to 19,502.49, Jakarta Composite was up 29.04 points or 0.75% to 3,909.86, KLSE Composite was up 2.54 points or 0.16% to 1,597.52, Nikkei 225 was up 76.11 points or 0.88% to 8,731.98, Straits Times was up 5.49 points or 0.19% to 2,847.90, KOSPI Composite was up 6.85 points or 0.36% to 1,898.62 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 32.87 points or 0.45% to 7,306.00.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 2.91 points or 0.13% to 2,297.88.