Trades Volatile Ahead Of RBI Announcement

The Indian markets have opened on a flat, negative note today ahead of the RBI's monetary policy meet. Both the major indices, Sensex and Nifty, are trading  lower by 0.02% and 0.01% respectively. Investors are looking forward to a possible CRR cut  by the RBI today. Banking, Real Estate, Auto and Financial stocks will be in focus and on the buyers' radar on hopes of a cut in policy rates today.

The other Asian indices are trading on a mixed note, with the Nikkei and Shanghai higher by 0.12% and 0.09% respectively while Hang Seng is down by 0.48%. The Japanese markets are trading higher ahead of the Bank of Japan's policy announcement, while individual stocks were pushed around by the earnings reports.

Back home, among the BSE sectoral indices, Realty, Tech and IT  have gained 0.70%, 0.70% and 0.63% respectively. Others like Bankex, Metals, PSU and Healthcare are also trading positive in the range of 0.02%-0.58%. On the other hand, Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Oil &Gas and Power are in the negative zone, lower in the range of 0.13%-0.38%.

Of the Sensex shares, Banking stocks are looking positive, like HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI are trading higher by 0.52%, 0.12%, 0.88% and 0.53% respectively. Bharti Airtel is up by 1.46% at Rs 273.70. BHEL, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp and Maruti Suzuki are among the major losers, lower in the range of 0.60%-1.30%.

In individual stocks, Colgate rose by 0.83% to Rs 1247 post the results announcement for the Sept 2012 quarter. The net profit for the company was up by 45% on a YoY basis at Rs 145 crore.

SKS Microfinance fell by 4.51% to Rs 115.50 after the company was slapped with a Rs 34 crore service tax notice. The net loss stood at Rs 262 crore in Q2 vs a loss of Rs 384 crore in the same period last year.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, is positive as of now. On the BSE, 1000 shares have advanced, 824 shares have declined and 105 shares are unchanged.