Trades Remain Volatile

The Indian markets are trading on a very volatile note on the back of the RBI's mid quarter policy review announcement. The market opened the day's trades higher, moved into the red as soon as the RBI's announcement came in, and then turned higher again on market speculation that there could be a rate cut in the Mar quarter of 2013. At present, both the frontline indices are trading positive, with the Sensex and Nifty up 0.45% and 0.42% respectively.

Earlier today, we saw the apex bank maintaining status quo on the key rates. With this, the repo, reverse repo and CRR were left unchanged at 8%, 7% and 4.25% respectively.

Among the sectoral indices, Metals, Capital Goods and Consumer Durables are higher. Others like Power, Teck and Healthcare are also positive. Bankex and Oil & Gas are the only indices that are currently lower, at 0.44% and 0.16% respectively. 

The Hang Seng is seen in the negative territory, while Nikkei and Shanghai are up 0.95% and 0.1% respectively.

Back home, Bharti Airtel is the leading index gainer, trading higher by 3.94% at Rs 312.30 per share. Metals stocks also remain strong, with Tata Steel, Hindalco, Jindal Steel and Sterlite Industries among those in the positive territory. Similarly, stocks like SBI, Infosys, Hero MotoCorp are marginally higher.

Maruti Suzuki is seeing the strongest losses so far in the day, down 1.15% at Rs 1482 per share. TCS, HDFC Bank, RIL, ONGC and Bajaj Auto are among the stocks trading negative.

The market breadth is strong this afternoon. On the BSE, 1457 shares have advanced, 1256 shares have declined and 139 shares are unchanged.