a volatile trade today at dalal street

• The Sensex closed at 19122, up 31 points from its previous close, and Nifty shut shop at 5741, up 12 points.
• The BSE Sensex eked out a 0.2 percent gain on Tuesday after falling for two consecutive sessions, but trading was volatile and the near-term outlook seemed subdued as investors shunned risk after rating agency Standard & Poor’s lowered its U.S. credit outlook to negative.
• State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, said on Tuesday it will raise its benchmark lending rate, or base rate, by 25 basis points to 8.5 percent per annum with effect from April 25.
• The Indian government on Tuesday forecast normal rains for the 2011 monsoon, strengthening the prospect for a good farm output that could help bring relief to Asia’s third-largest economy in its battle with high food prices.
• Harley-Davidson Inc reported a wider quarterly profit on Tuesday on higher income from the company’s financial services division and a 3.5 percent increase in sales of new motorcycles.
• The government is risking losing control of inflation, leaving the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with few tools other than the blunt instrument of more aggressive interest rate increases even as growth momentum slows.
• Falling gas output and a rising subsidy burden are expected to weigh on the respective outlooks of energy major Reliance Industries and explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp, taking the shine off their likely strong fourth-quarter earnings.
• The Indian rupee pulled back from a 2-1/2 week low touched earlier in the session due some dollar selling at higher levels.
• A German government adviser said on Tuesday that a restructuring of Greek debt was inevitable, raising pressure on Athens to seek a solution to the debt woes that are shaking investor confidence in the euro zone.
• India’s annual headline inflation in April could ease below 8 percent and 2011/12 economic growth should range between 8.75 and 9.25 percent, the chief economic adviser to the finance ministry said on Tuesday.
• Falling gas output and a rising subsidy burden are expected to weigh on the respective outlooks of energy major Reliance Industries and explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp, taking the shine off their likely strong fourth-quarter earnings.
• A renewed rise in Spanish debt yields is bad news for the euro zone, since it shows Spain is still failing to set itself apart from the zone’s weakest states in the eyes of the markets.
• Some of the United States’ biggest creditors moved to shore up confidence in its sovereign debt on Tuesday after Standard & Poor’s threatened to cut its credit rating on the world’s top economy, touching a nerve among big holders of Treasuries.
• Costly oil could place a major strain on consumer countries with fragile economies, OPEC ministers said on Monday, in their clearest statements yet that they believe fuel demand has shrunk.
• India, which has allowed exports of 500,000 tonnes of sugar following a bumper crop, has asked mills to register starting Tuesday, a source in the food ministry said.
• Foreign direct investment flowing into China rose 29.4 percent to $30.3 billion in the first three months of the year, data showed on Tuesday, as the country’s booming services sector pulled in more funds.
• China will tightly regulate land supply to boost affordable housing and to clamp down harder on illegal land use this year, the Ministry of Land and Resources said on Tuesday, as it seeks to contain housing inflation.
• India’s current account deficit for the last fiscal year that ended in March 2011 is expected to be less than 3 percent, Trade Secretary Rahul Khullar told reporters on Tuesday.

struggle of sense to get out of negative bias

• The markets continue to trade volatile in the negative terrain, but above their intraday lows. At 11:05 a.m., the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 19,555.70, down 56.50 points or 0.29% from the previous close, while the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5,874.30, down 17.45 points or 0.3%.
• Indian shares eased a tad on Thursday as investors were in consolidation mode after a big rally in March, while underlying sentiment remained upbeat following a spurt in foreign fund buying.
• Maruti was trading down 1.3 percent at 1,277.95 rupees after the company said it would recall 13,157 diesel engine cars.
• Foreign funds have pumped around $2.8 billion into equities since the start of March, after being net sellers in the first two months, on hopes a market correction made the market attractive given economic growth was still robust.
• Global demand for dairy products will jump in the next decade, led by surging consumption in China and India, according to Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd, the world’s largest exporter.
• Oil dropped from the highest in 30 months in New York after China raised domestic fuel prices and U.S. stockpiles climbed, stoking speculation demand may falter in the world’s biggest energy users.
• Gold declined on speculation that investors are locking in gains after the price rose to a record earlier, and as central bank efforts to combat inflation curbed demand for precious metals.
• Asian stocks rose as the yen weakened against all of its most-traded currencies and after gold prices rose to a record for a second day in New York on demand for the precious metal as a hedge against inflation.
• Indian imports of power-station coal rose by 33% to 65.7 million metric tons in the year ending March 2011 from 49.4 million a year earlier, India Coal Market Watch said, citing estimates based on port data.
• World trade will grow faster than the 7 percent long-term average rate for a second successive year in 2011 but fall short of last year’s dramatic rebound, the World Trade Organisation is likely to forecast on Thursday.
• China may be heading for a pause in its half-year cycle of monetary tightening, raising interest rates just once more this year as its moves so far start to slow inflation and economic activity.
• The U.S. economy remains too fragile for the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates, the president of the Atlanta Fed, Dennis Lockhart, said on Wednesday.
• Portugal’s decision to seek international aid removes a cloud of uncertainty over the euro zone and has a good chance of ending the spread of debt market crises to fresh countries in the region.
• Chinese economy probably grew less quickly in the first quarter of this year than the final quarter of 2010, dovetailing with the government’s efforts to shift more emphasis to the quality rather than the pace of growth.
• Portugal’s caretaker government, fighting to avoid a bailout, said on Wednesday a political crisis had caused “irreparable damage” after borrowing costs rocketed as it sold a billion euros in short-term debt.
• The euro will steadily lose the recent ground it has gained against the dollar in the coming year as the U.S. Federal Reserve plays catch-up to the European Central Bank’s interest rate hikes, a Reuters poll found.
• India’s record grains output in 2011 may prompt the government to allow wheat exports, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday, boosting the prospect of overseas sales of the grain from the world’s second – biggest producer.
• Some of Asia’s emerging economies are showing signs of overheating, underscoring the need for further policy tightening and more flexible foreign exchange rates to tackle growing inflationary pressures, the Asian Development Bank said on Wednesday.
• U.S. congressional negotiators on Wednesday raced against a looming deadline to agree on billions of dollars in spending cuts and find a budget deal that keeps the federal government operating beyond Friday.
• Europe has opened flat and is trading mixed. The Indian market is now in the green but still in flat territory with the heavyweights proving to be a drag in today’s trade. Sensex is trading at 19624, up 12 points from its previous close, and Nifty is at 5896, up 4 points.( 01:23 pm,india).
• Leading India Inc representatives today made a strong plea to the Reserve Bank to review its rate tightening policy, saying the high cost of credit is having an adverse impact on growth.
• Cairn Energy and Vedanta Resources on Thursday extended the deadline for a $9.6 billion deal for Cairn’s India assets, reflecting optimism the deal will get done a day after the government deferred a decision. Both companies have extended the date by which all conditions must be completed or waived to 20 May 2011 to accommodate the completion of the open offer for Cairn India shares, Cairn Energy said in a statement.
• Food inflation fell to 9.18 per cent for the week ended March 26, the lowest level in almost four months, on the back of a decline in the prices of pulses.
• The European Central Bank is poised to raise interest rates from a record low 1.0 percent on Thursday and more is likely to follow but, fearful of heaping more pain on the euro zone’s stragglers, it will give few clues about when the next move will come.
• Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), the country’s largest car maker, on Wednesday said it wouldrecall 13,157 diesel cars manufactured between November 13 and December 4, 2010, to examine a possible faulty engine part.
• The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers of Rs 150.85 crore in futures and options segment on Wednesday.According to the data released by the NSE, FIIs were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 117.33 crore, while they sold index options worth Rs 587.96 crore.They were net sellers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 305.01 crore and sold stock options worth Rs 14.77 crore.
• Oil producing countries that have surplus production capacity provided international oil companies with additional quantities of crude, UAE Energy Minister Mohammed bin Dha’en Al Hameli has said.Addressing the 12th International Oil Summit in Paris on Wednesday, Al Hameli said that OPEC members are not the only producers that are providing additional supplies, noting that non-OPEC supplies were expected to reach 500,000 barrels a day this year.
• The Union government has slapped an excise duty of 10% on jute products that constitute about 80% of the Rs 6,000 crore industry and threatens to cripple the fate of 2.5 lakh workers.