FLAT START

Indian equity markets have made a flat start as investors remained on the safer side ahead of IIP data and inflation numbers to be announced later in this week. The global cues too remain mixed as Asian peers were trading mixed at this point of time though; the US markets extended the rally with modest gains on Friday despite weak jobs report, as there were hopes of stimulus in next Fed meet that got bolstered with the jobs report. Back home, investors opted to take some profit off the table as the key indices gained around two and half a percent in last two sessions. On the sectoral front, healthcare witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by metal and public sector undertaking while, realty, auto and banking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading slightly better than benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 869 shares on the gaining side against 679 shares on the losing side while 66 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,780.93; about 31 points higher compared to its previous closing of 17,749.65, and has touched a high and a low of 17,810.90 and 17,731.75 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,753.29, up by 3.64 points or 0.02%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 53.84% stocks advancing against 42.07% declines. The broader indices were trading slightly better than benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.19% and 0.15% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, HC up by 0.52%, Metal up by 0.23%, PSU up by 0.20%, Power up by 0.03% and FMCG up by 0.01%. While, Realty down by 0.38%, Auto down by 0.28%, Bankex down by 0.23%, CG down by 0.22% and IT down by 0.17% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 1.43%, Coal India up by 1.21%, Sun Pharma up by 1.01%, Tata Steel up by 0.94% and HDFC up by 0.80%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 2.31%, Wipro was down by 1.04%, TCS was down by 0.87%, GAIL was down by 0.84% and SBI was down by 0.71% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to help the suffering farmers amid drought due to stringent monsoon rains, Union Cabinet  presided by the Prime Minister has released funds of Rs 10,901 crore to banks as interest subvention for crop loans up to Rs 300,000 to farmers in FY 2012-13.

The Cabinet will allocate Rs 3,267 crore from the fund for subvention to NABARD for refinance to cooperatives banks and RRBs. The remaining Rs 7,634 crore will be given to public sector banks, RRBs and cooperative banks for subvention on their own funds. The centre has also decided to provide additional interest subvention of 3% to those farmers who repay short-term crop loans on time that is within 1 year of disbursement.

The government has been providing financial support to farmers on short-term crop loans in order to make sure the availability of crop loans to farmers for loans up to Rs 300,000 at 7% per annum. The cabinet has also approved the proposal to grant interest subvention to small and marginal farmers having Kisan Credit Card for loan against negotiable warehouse receipts for post harvest at 7% interest for a period of 6 months.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,361.90; about 19 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,342.10, and has touched a high and a low of 5,375.45 and 5,350.40 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,356.85, higher by 1.85 points or 0.03%. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 1.18%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.18%, Coal India up by 1.16%, Reliance Infra up by 0.90% and HDFC up by 0.89%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 2.39%, Axis Bank down by 1.23%, TCS down by 1.12%, Wipro down by 1.10% and IDFC down by 1.06%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite was up by 6.87 points or 0.32% to 2,134.63, Hang Seng gained 37.21 points or 0.19% to 19,839.37, Straits Times added 2.60 points or 0.08% to 3,014.15 and Taiwan Weighted has gained 52.25 points or 0.70% to 7,476.96.

On the other hand, Jakarta Composite lost 8.69 points or 0.20% to 4,135.07, KLSE Composite gained 1.72 points or 0.12% to 1,622.65, Nikkei 225 was down by 11.31 points or 0.13% to 8,860.34 and Kospi Composite was marginally down by 2.24 points or 0.12% to 1,927.34.