Markets have a quiet start

It has been a marginally positive opening for the markets. The Sensex is quoting at 18064, lower by 13 points and the Nifty is virtually unchanged at 5430. There is outperformance on the broad'er market front though. The midcap index is at 7408, higher by 27 points and the smallcap index is at 9404, up 44 points.

The US markets had ended flat, with a negative bias, on Tuesday on the back of mixed earnings reports and a fall in consumer confidence. The Dow added 12 points to 10,537 and Nasdaq shed eight points to close at 2,288. Asian markets have started on a positive note, though, with the Hang Seng adding 63 points and Nikkei gaining 178 points in early trades.

The RBI had raised the key rates for a fourth time this year on Tuesday in the face of rising inflation. In its first quarterly monetary policy review for 2010-11, the central bank had raised the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 5.75% and the reverse repo rate by 50 bps to 4.50%.

After a period of consolidation, Tata Steel has jumped 1.1% to Rs 536 to emerge as the leading gainer on the BSE. M&M has gained 0.8% at Rs 645 ahead of its Q1 results scheduled later in the day and ONGC has added 0.7% at Rs 1271 on the news that it has joined hands with PetroVietnam to bid for BP's assets. Maruti, L&T and Hero Honda are the other leading gainers. RIL, however, continues to trade in a sluggish manner despite posting better-than-expected Q1 numbers. The index heavyweight is quoting at Rs 1057, higher by a mere four points.

On the other hand, ACC has weakened by 0.9% at Rs 840, Bharti Airtel has shed 0.9% at Rs 319 and ICICI Bank has lost 0.8% at Rs 916.

The market breadth is positive. Out of 1597 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1092 advancing stocks as againt 450 declines.