FLAT NOTE

Key domestic benchmarks have started off Thursday trade on a flat note as investors stayed away from making any big bets ahead of a meeting of European Central Bank today evening. On the global front, the US markets once again made a mixed closing overnight while, Asian counters too exhibiting mixed trend eying European development. Back home, UPA II's governance deficit continues to be a drag on the markets. The 'coal-gate' remains a major overhang. With the economy on a downward spiral, lack of meaningful progress on market-friendly reforms will further dent investors' sentiment. Moreover, stocks of two-wheeler sector like Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp and TVS Motor edged lower as sales fell for the first time in 42 months in August due to a combination of surging petrol prices and high interest costs. On sectoral front, software witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by metal and technology while, fast moving consumer goods, power and capital goods remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 872 shares on the gaining side against 522 shares on the losing side while 68 shares remained unchanged.  The BSE Sensex opened at 17,320.73; about 7 points higher compared to its previous closing of 17,313.34, and has touched a high and a low of 17,339.25 and 17,297.69 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,323.77, up by 10.43 points or 0.06%. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 59.64% stocks advancing against 35.70% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.26% and 0.23% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 0.90%, Metal up by 0.75%, TECk up by 0.58%, Realty up by 0.47% and PSU up by 0.38%. While FMCG down by 0.52%, Power down by 0.51%, CG down by 0.27% and HC down by 0.23% remained the few losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 2.40%, Infosys up by 1.92%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.66%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.15% and ICICI Bank up by 1.03%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.49%, BHEL was down by 1.44%, Sun Pharma was down by 1.03%, ITC was down by 0.90% and Hero MotoCorp was down by 0.84% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, though India's economic growth have slipped to 5.5% during April-June of 2012-13, advisory firm KPMG opined that India is performing better than many countries. It reaffirmed that in the current environment of global economic slowdown, the most important part is that the country is still growing.

It pointed out that world's largest economy, the US grew at 1.5% in 2011, versus 3.1% in 2010, while, Germany's GDP grew by 3%, though in 2010 it was 3.7%. It emphasized that the focus should be on how this turbulent journey is sailed through, albeit India has touched the lowest Q1 performance in a decade, because of low performance in manufacturing, mining and quarrying.

On maintaining sustainability for the PSUs in the wake of global economic and domestic slowdown, KPMG India Chief Operating Officer Akhil Bansal, suggested that the Public sector should carry little more responsibility than the private sector, to survive during this turbulent time as it's more significant. He also added that collaboration between the PSUs and the private sector will accelerate the development process.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,217.65; about 8 points lower compared to its previous closing of 5,225.70, and has touched a high of 5,231.00 while low remain its opening.

The index is currently trading at 5,229.05, higher by 3.35 points or 0.06%. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 2.58%, Infosys up by 1.95%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.66%, JP Associates up by 1.64% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.22%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.40%, BHEL down by 1.30%, IDFC down by 1.15%, Power Grid down by 1.02% and Sun Pharma down by 0.98%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite was marginally up by 0.45 points or 0.02% to 2,037.85, Jakarta Composite was up by 22.66 points or 0.56% to 4,098.36, Nikkei 225 was up by 5.10 points or 0.06% to 8,684.92 and Kospi Composite was higher by 7.97 points or 0.42% to 1,881.99.

On the other hand, Hang Seng lost 57.04 points or 0.30% to 19,088.03, KLSE Composite was down by 20.69 points or 1.26% 1,620.32, Straits Times declined by 13.42 points or 0.45% to 2,982.48 and Taiwan Weighted lost 8.59 points or 0.12% to 7,358.85.