Markets open steady on Bernanke's comment, rupee weakens

The Indian markets opened in steady following global cuesafter Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pledged to keep monetary policy easy for the foreseeable future.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19985.18, up0.18 percent, while the Nifty opened at 5988.00, up 0.25 percent.

Globally,Asian sharesinched up to a near five-week high on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pledged to keep monetary policy easy for the foreseeable future, while the dollar held on to modest overnight gains.

Bernanke said that tapering may start this year, but it will be data dependent and that sort of kept the US bond yield around 2.47 percent.According to CNBC-TV18’s managing editor, Udayan Mukherjee,the market is about to enter a boring phase because impetus on the way up and impetus on the way down, both seem to be cancelling each other out.

“Basically, what the Federal Reserve (Fed) is saying that they will still taper but it will be data dependent. While that may keep the bulls and bears happy for the moment, it also makes for market volatility because now the market does not have in his words a preset timeframe, which is why it will keep guessing all the time,” he said.

The rupee weakened today after the dollar gained modestly after Bernanke said the central bank would be flexible about its U.S. monetary stimulus.Investors are looking ahead at a planned open market operation sale of 120 billion rupee from the Reserve Bank of India later in the day, in what is a key plank in its move to drain liquidity from the financial system to support the rupee.

The rupee was at 59.63/64 after closing at 59.34/35 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Oil Minister Veerappa Moily has said that the EGoM on gas collectionhave decided that natural gas requirement of fertiliser sector will be protected and decision on allocating extra gas to power companies will be considered in the next meeting.

Stocks in news:

TCS is up 0.8 percent, ahead of results today evening.Analysts on an average expect the profit after tax to grow by 5.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 3,787 crore.

Axis Bank will likely post first-quarter net profit growth of 17 percent, at 1.30 p.m.; shares up 1 percent in pre-open trade.

Finally some relief for banking stocks – HDFC Bank up 0.9 percent, ICICI up 0.5 percent, Yes Bank up 1 percent, PNB rises 0.7 percent. The RBI on Wednesday allowed banks, a special dispensation, to borrow up to Rs 25,000 crore. Lenders can lend the same to mutual fund houses, which are facing redemption pressure on their debt schemes due to sudden spurt in bond yields.