MARKETS TRADE LOWER

Key benchmarks have made a soft opening, weighed down by weak global markets ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meet that will begin today for two days and German constitutional court's ruling over the legality of the European bailout fund on Wednesday. But, the initial losses were capped immediately on news that cabinet will meet today for fuel price hike. Globally, the US markets closed lower on Monday on getting weak economic data from both domestic as well as global front while, the Asian markets were trading lower and barring one or two, all indices in the region were in red. Back home, metal stocks remained the biggest underperformers as the Goa mining ban adversely affected companies like Sesa Goa, which is country's biggest iron ore producer in the private sector. However, aviation stocks like Kingfisher, Jet Air India and Spicejet all edged higher after Minister for Civil Aviation Ajit Singh had written to the Oil Ministry on declaring aviation turbine fuel (ATF) as a notified product, which may decrease the burden of fuel cost on airlines. Meanwhile, Pharma stocks like, Cadila, Sun Pharma and Cipla all edged higher on report that Health Ministry is working on new rules to ensure the availability of medicines at affordable prices in the local market and may put tougher conditions for foreign pharmaceutical companies looking to acquire Indian drugs businesses. Moreover, the broader indices were outperforming benchmarks while the market breadth on the BSE was evenly divided; there were 841 shares on the gaining side against 635 shares on the losing side while 67 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,711.80; about 55 points lower compared to its previous closing of 17,766.78, and has touched a high and a low of 17,750.90 and 17,677.38 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,750.46, down by 16.32 points or 0.09%. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 54.50% stocks advancing against 41.15% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.27% and 0.28% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, HC up by 0.73%, CD up by 0.34%, PSU up by 0.29%, FMCG up by 0.29% and Oil and Gas up by 0.24%. While, Metal down by 1.46%, Auto down by 0.58%, Bankex down by 0.18%, TECk down by 0.09% and IT down by 0.06% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 1.19%, ONGC up by 1.19%, Sun Pharma up by 1.02%, GAIL up by 0.94% and Cipla up by 0.93%.

On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 4.43%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 2.12%, Jindal Steel was down by 1.99%, Tata Steel was down by 0.87% and RIL was down by 0.85% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in an aim to contain the high fiscal deficit of the country, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, had advised the ministries not to seek additional funds other than the budgeted figure, at a meeting with financial advisors of different ministries, which was called to review the progress of planned and non-planned expenditure. The government had proposed to bring down fiscal deficit to 5.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the current fiscal, from 5.8% in 2011-12.

The finance ministry also made it clear that getting approval for new Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) will be unlikely in the current fiscal. Out of the total 147 such Schemes, nearly 100 had an annual outlay of Rs 300 crore or less. Chidambaram also urged all ministries and departments to reduce non-Plan expenditure by 10% in the present financial year.

Besides these, the soaring prices of oil and commodity in the international markets are another major concern as it will weigh high on this year's fuel and fertilizer subsidy bill.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,336.10; about 7 points lower compared to its previous closing of 5,363.45 and has touched a high and a low of 5,352.80 and 5,332.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,352.55, up by 10.90 points or 0.20%. There were 22 stocks advancing against 28 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 2.09%, BHEL up by 1.46%, Sun Pharma up by 1.16%, ONGC up by 0.99% and GAIL up by 0.84%.

On the flip side, Sesa Goa down by 5.15%, Sterlite Industries down by 4.57%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.94%, Jindal Steel down by 1.93% and SAIL down by 1.64%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite was down by 17.96 points or 0.84% to 2,116.93, Hang Seng lost 126.61 points or 0.64% to 19,700.56, Jakarta Composite lost 20.36 points or 0.49% to 4,140.39, KLSE Composite plunged by 18.97 points or 1.17% to 1,602.07, Nikkei 225 was declined by 72.39 points or 0.82% to 8,796.98 and Kospi Composite was down by 3.59 points or 0.17% to 1,921.67.

On the other hand, Straits Times added 2.30 points or 0.09% to 3,011.51, and Taiwan Weighted has gained 2.73 points or 0.04% to 7,484.54.