POSITIVE SENTIMENTS

Sentiments remained sanguine in the morning trade with Nifty recapturing 5,300 mark in initial trade following great rally in Asian markets. The traders' mood remained upbeat on increased capital inflows triggered by measures announced by the government last week to revive the economy and strengthen the rupee. Besides, a firming trend in global equity markets on growing hopes that global central banks will take further steps to power the economy also aided the sentiment. Globally, the US markets closed higher on a short session of trade on Tuesday while, all the Asian peers were witnessing jubilant run at this point of time. Back home, BSE's -- Sensex -- and NSE's -- Nifty - were hovering near their crucial, 17,500 and 5,300 mark respectively. On sectoral front, metal witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by auto and realty while, oil and gas, fast moving consumer goods and software remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. Meanwhile, telecom stocks like Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communication all edged higher in the trade after TDSAT gave a split verdict on whether mobile operators could offer 3G services through roaming pacts. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,086 shares on the gaining side against 504 shares on the losing side while 78 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,473.26; about 48 points higher compared to its previous closing of 17,425.71, and has touched a high and a low of 17,523.77 and 17,445.06 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,462.89, up by 37.18 points or 0.21%. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 65.11% stocks advancing against 30.22% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.46% and 0.32% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 1.27%, Auto up by 0.92%, Realty up by 0.57%, Power up by 0.54% and HC up by 0.43%. While, Oil and Gas down by 0.41%, FMCG down by 0.23% and IT down by 0.12% remained the few losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sterlite Industries up by 1.85%, Jindal Steel up by 1.75%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.73%, Tata Power up by 1.54% and Tata Steel up by 1.34%.

On the flip side, HUL was down by 1.01%, ONGC was down by 1.00%, Wipro was down by 0.95%, Sun Pharma was down by 0.52% and RIL was down by 0.48% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Coal India (CIL) is likely to go for the price-pooling mechanism, where the average price of coal sold by the company will be increased to accommodate use of imported coal. It is also expected to sort out the issues involved with Central Electricity Authority, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, Coal Ministry, Power Ministry and State Utilities in a meeting, which is scheduled to be held in the second week of July.

This is an important step as private producers have been demanding it for sometime now, with price-pooling being recently proposed by the prime minister's office (PMO). With the country lined up to witness a shortfall in supply in the next few years, CIL alone cannot meet the coal demand from power producers. The deficit in supply has to be met via imports, which normally costs more than double the price at which coal is imported.

Imported coal increases the cost of generation of power and as a result the producer have been demanding a price pooling mechanism where the average price of coal sold through Coal India will be increased to accommodate the use of imported coal. The concept has been tabled and it will have to be discussed and debated to arrive at the mechanism and the method of calculation of the pool price.

CIL's coal with gross calorific value (GCV) of 4,000 is about 1,100 per tonne and imported coal with GCV between 5,000 and 8,000 will be of higher price. Whereas, CIL will be supplying about 350 million tonnes to the power producers another 70 million tonnes may be required for imports.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,310.40; about 36 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,287.95, and has touched a high and a low of 5,317.65 and 5,293.15 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,298.35, higher by 10.40 points or 0.20%. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sesa Goa up by 3.08%, Jindal Steel up by 1.93%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.75%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.65% and Tata Power up by 1.45%.

On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.41%, Wipro down by 0.99%, BPCL down by 0.86%, HUL down by 0.82% and ACC down by 0.73%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian markets were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite was slightly up by 0.11 points to 2,229.30, Hang Seng Index soared 35.39 points or 0.18% to 19,770.92, Jakarta Composite surged 29.73 points or 0.73% to 4079.44, KLSE Composite rose 5.06 points or 0.31% to 1,612.83, Nikkei 225 gained 42.63 points or 0.48% to 9111.61, Straits Times Index advanced 10.10 points or 0.33% to 2,955.05 and Taiwan Weighted climbed 2.48 points or 0.04% to 7,421.94. Kospi Composite gained 7.12 points or 0.34% to 1874.69.