SLENDER GAINS

After slipping off in the red terrain in the early deals, barometer gauges have now managed to squeeze out slender gains as market-men shopped for fundamentally strong blue chip stocks that have bought some sort of relief in otherwise ailing Indian equity markets which have termed RBI's latest action a damp squib. 30 scrip sensitive index, Sensex, shaving off all the losses, is currently trading in proximity to its neutral line. Meanwhile, the widely followed index, Nifty, on NSE too knocking off all the losses, is trading flat near the 5110 level. Conversely broader indices, have trimmed substantial gains. Increasing skepticism around the European Union summit that is scheduled for June 28-29 in Brussels, is mainly keeping the markets around the globe jittery. Asian markets were marginally lower today after Cyprus, third smallest economy in Eurozone, also joined the bailout queue and announced intention to request for funding. Cyprus is the fifth country after Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to seek refuge. Meanwhile, the US future indices continued to show an uptick in the screen trade.

Closer home, stocks from Oil & Gas, defensive Health Care and Rate Sensitive counter, have slug hard for the optimism, however, stocks from FMCG, Metal and Information Technology are keeping a lid on the gains of the bourses. Depreciation of Rupee again past '57/$' psychological level is mainly keeping the markets in a jinx. Sectorally, Oil & Gas gauge is the star performer amongst the 13 sectoral indices, on account of dwindling brent crude prices and on the hopes that Government will now be ready to bite the bullet of diesel price hike. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of advances which thumped declines in the ratio of 1054:892, while 127 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex, after touching a high and low of 16,908.54 and 16,841.13 respectively, is currently trading marginally up by 3.52 points or 0.02% at 16,885.68. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declining one's on the index.

Conversely, broader indices pared gains; BSE Mid cap index gained 0.26%, while Small cap index was holding up in green by 0.03%.

Oil & Gas up by 0.62%, Health Care up by 0.54%, Bankex up by 0.46%, Power up by 0.45% and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) up by 0.45% were the top gaining sectoral indices on 30 scrip sensitive index of BSE, Sensex. On the flip side, Fast Moving Consumer Goods down by 0.66%, Metal down by 0.46%, Information Technology down by 0.22%, Technology down by 0.16% and Consumer Durable down by 0.08% remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral chart.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 1.66%, Tata Power up by 1.65%, TCS up by 1.43%, ONGC up by 1.41% and Dr Reddy's Lab up by 1.29%.

On the flip side, HUL down by 1.49%, Infosys down by 1.35%, Sterlite Industries down by 1.31%, Tata Steel down by 1.22% and ITC down by 0.74% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, after the government's much hyped measures to boost foreign investments disappointed both markets and corporate and even failed to arrest slide in rupee, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia vowed that more such measures are in the offing to revive growth momentum and boost inflow of foreign funds. Apart from what has also been already announced, the government is working on other set of measures particularly, on implementation of large projects on which the Prime Minister has set up new mechanism to move things faster.

In a bid to boost Indian economy in the back drop of rupee depreciation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) eased External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) and has enhanced foreign institutional investors (FIIs) investment caps in corporate bonds. The central bank also increased existing limit for investment in Government securities (G-Secs) by SEBI registered FIIs to $20 billion. It has allowed Indian companies in sectors of manufacturing, infrastructure and others having foreign exchange earnings to avail ECBs upto a limit of $10 billion.

The Planning Commission Deputy Chairman commending RBI's efforts stated that they are encouraging basically the larger flow of resources and also affirmed that it is certainly a step in the right direction. He also went on to rebuff the criticism that the measures were not enough as the markets did not react positively and rupee slid further immediately after the measures were announced by the RBI. The BSE benchmark index Sensex, after surging to highest levels in around seven weeks high, sank by over 90 points post the announcement of RBI measures while the rupee which opened at 56.44, depreciated to 57.92 against a dollar immediately after the measures were announced.

On the recent disappointing performance of Indian currency, he said though the rupee has depreciated a lot, this has been a year in which currencies everywhere in the world are highly unstable. But he exuded confidence in the underline strength of the Indian economy and was hopeful that Asia's third largest economy would come back to high growth trajectory.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,117.10, up by 2.45 points or 0.05%. The index touched a high and low of 5,124.85 and 5,102.30 respectively. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Power up by 1.81%, ONGC up by 1.71%, Gail India up by 1.48%, TCS and HDFC Bank was up by 1.41%.

On the flip side, SAIL down by 1.72%, HCL Technologies down by 1.56%, HUL down by 1.49%, Infosys down by 1.36% and Asian Paints down by 1.35%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity markets were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 0.49%, KLSE Composite dropped 0.30%, Nikkei plunged 0.75%, Strait Times slid 0.28%, Kospi Composite Index shed 0.27% and Taiwan Weighted lost 0.43%, Hang Seng contracted 0.13%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite up by 0.25% was the lone gainer amongst the Asian pack.