A LACK- LUSTER SESSION

The Indian equity markets witnessed a lack-luster and volatile day of trade on Wednesday after showing firm trend in the previous session. Though the start of the local markets was good tracking the positive cues of the global markets and easing crude prices, also on the domestic front the political uncertainty situation seemed mitigating after the governments' southern ally DMK agreed for a seat sharing formula with the congress for the forthcoming assembly election in Tamil Nadu. There were lots of news flow that kept the markets buzzing throughout the day. Initially it was the news of crude that Brent crude dropped for a third day, dipping below $113 on Wednesday, this gave the much needed  respite to the PSU oil marketing companies (OMC) as the Indian crude oil basket has risen above $108. India imports about 80 per cent of its crude oil requirements and the international oil prices necessarily have a bearing on the domestic prices of petrol and other petroleum products. But the joy of the PSU OMC's was short lived as another news spread in the market that the government was mulling to regulate the petrol prices and that dampened the mood as the companies were expecting diesel price de-regulation, however later a top official came with a clarification that the government has no plans now to intervene to set petrol prices, but there is a provision that if prices go to astronomically high levels then the government may intervene. By the time the statement came the damage was already done and all the PSU OMCs were reeling in red and could not recover, finally ending in red. On the other hand there was a news flow about the market heavy weight reliance Industries (RIL) that helped the markets to remain in green till last.  RIL got a weak start after market regulator Sebi decision to start adjudication proceedings in a case of an alleged takeover code violation by the company, but later as the director general of hydrocarbons  reported that Reliance Industries may increase production of natural gas from April at the D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin from 53 MMSCMD to 67 MMSCMD the stocks bounced back. KG D6 block is the main revenue generator for the company so the development got a positive response.

On the global front, the US markets closed higher overnight after the crude showed sign of easing, while most of the Asian markets closed in green with some even gaining over half a percent. However the European markets were showing mixed sign with FTSE 100 and CAC 40 trading in red. The US futures too were depicting similar trait though have recovered from their lows.

Earlier the start of the session was on a sanguine note for the domestic markets with both the benchmarks crossing their respective psychological levels of 18500 (Sensex) and 5500 (Nifty) respectively in very early trade. The rate sensitive sectors once again took the lead taking the markets higher while the dollar weakness was evident in the early trade on the IT and Tech stocks. Later on some profit booking started with the news of some escalation in the Libyan unrest and the buzz of government plan to re-regulate the petrol prices, though the rate sensitive's' tried hard but intense selling in the healthcare, oil & gas and IT sector stocks took the markets down in the noon session with benchmarks touching their intraday lows. The broader indices continued firm throughout the day and helped the markets to remain in fine fettle afterwards with the market heavy weight Reliance Industries making a bounce back on the news of production ramp up from the KG D6 block. Realty Consumer Durables (CD), Auto and Power sector helped the markets close in green while the Healthcare (HC) and IT sector remained the laggard of the day. The one positive surprise came with ADAG stocks, that have been battered for the last some time making a good bounce back on news that the telecom company of the group Reliance Communication was likely to ink a tower sale deal. All the ADAG companies stock moved higher by 2-10% for the day with RCom gaining the most. The market breadth remained in the favour of advances with gainers outnumbering the losers in the ratio of 1645:1218.

Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 30.30 points or 0.16% to settle at 18469.95.46 while the S&P CNX Nifty gained 10.20 points or 0.18% to end at 5531.00.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 18583.30 and 18303.80, respectively. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices gained 0.65% and 0.82%, respectively.

Reliance Communication up 9.36%, Reliance Infrastructure up 2.37%, Bajaj Auto up 2.27%, DLF up 1.33% and ICICI Bank up 1.24% were the major gainers on the Sensex.

On the flip side, Cipla down 1.74%, Sterlite Industries down 1.19%, NTPC down 1.03%, Jindal Steel down 0.69% and Hindustan Unilever down 0.66% were the major losers on the index.

Coal India, the largest coal producing company in the world, will soon get clearance from environment ministry to start work on 7 projects. The projects located in Bokaro, Raniganj and Rajmahal coal fields would be the first one to get clearance from the ministry.

The projects located in coal field falling in the ambit of CEPI-namely Dhanbad and Chandrapur might also be considered for clearance. Environment appraisal committee will meet soon for clearing these projects. Bokaro, Raniganj and Rajmahal coal fields together own about 19 per cent of Coal India's estimated coal reserves. Bokaro owns 5000 million tonne of total reserves gross and 3500 million tonne of proven coal reserves.

The main gainers in the BSE sectoral space were Realty up 1.74%, Consumer Durables (CD) up 0.88%, Auto up 0.72%, Power up 0.48% and Capital Goods (CG) up 0.40%.

Health Care (HC) down 0.36% and Information Technology (IT) down 0.14% were the only looser in the BSE sectoral space.

After days of extreme bargaining, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Congress on March 08, 2011 clinched a deal under which the Congress would contest 63 seats in the next month's Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.

The development signaled that the DMK, eventually, yielded to the Congress' demand for a higher number of seats. DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi announced the conclusion of the seat-sharing process. Expressing his happiness over the development, he stated that his party (DMK) would contest 121 seats, eight less than last time. The Indian Union Muslim League and the Moovender Munnetra Kazhagam will contest on the DMK symbol.

The announcement was preceded by a few rounds of talks between Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran and senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee. Later, Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, along with Union Ministers M.K. Alagiri and Maran, called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi and made the announcement on the conclusion of seat-sharing.

The negotiations had hit a barrier on March 04, 2011, when Karunanidhi criticized the Congress for raising its demand to 63 seats after his party had agreed to allot 60 seats. The next day, the DMK's high-level committee decided to pull out its Ministers from the Union government.

The S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 5563.30 and 5477.45, respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Reliance Communications up 9.43%, Reliance Capital up 3.45%, Ambuja Cement up 3.33%, SAIL up 2.28% and Reliance Infra up 1.95%.

The top losers on the index were Cairn down 2.73%, Sun Pharma down 2.11%, Cipla down 2.08%, BPCL down 1.92% and NTPC down 1.44%.

India's leading telecommunications company, Bharti Airtel has added about 6 lakh 3G subscribers, which offer higher average revenues, since the launch of the next generation telephony service in January-end. 3G offers better bandwidth that allows heavy data transfer. Mobile firms have paid heavy fees in an auction to secure the spectrum for rollout of the services.

Recently, the company had unveiled its 3G services in Mumbai. It the 11th city where Airtel launched its services and the company is targeting a rollout in 40 cities across 13 telecom circles where it has secured a 3G license by March-end. For the Mumbai circle, the company has invested in erecting 1,300 3G sites or towers which are over and above 3,100 2G sites it has

European markets were trading in the mix on Wednesday. France's CAC 40 declined 0.11%, Germany's DAX rose 0.34% and Britain's FTSE 100 declined by 0.44%.

All the Asian equity indices barring Straits Times finished the day's trade in the positive terrain on Wednesday as Wall Street climbed overnight and crude cooled off a bit which also aided the sentiments in the region. Oil prices fell to near $104 a barrel after Kuwait's oil minister said that OPEC members are in informal talks about raising oil output. Japanese Nikkei surged more than half a percent as country's machinery orders rose stronger than expected in January. Moreover, Shanghai Composite edged higher in the trade as banks rose on hopes of strong full-year earnings and water project developers gained from supportive policies at Beijing's annual legislative meeting.