Sensex crosses 17k, power stocks rally on tariff hike in Delhi

The Indian markets open on a positive note following overnight gains on the Wall Street, although Asian markets are mixed. The Sensex rose 105 points to 17011in the early trade on and the Nifty was up 28.64 points to 5149.45.

Infosys, TCS, DLF, Bajaj Auto, Coal India, Maruti, BHEL, Tata Power, ONGC, L&T, Sun Pharma are among the gainers in Sensex and Nifty. Wipro, Bharti Airtel are among losers in Sensex and Nifty.The undercurrent is buoyant on the back of overnight gains in the US stocks and encouraging trend across Asian markets this morning.

Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Power rallied 3% each after Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission hiked power tariffs in Delhi that would be effective from July 1. Domestic prices went up by 24% and commercial prices up by 19.5%.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes over the finance ministry after two decades, facing twin hurdles of maintaining growth and checking inflation.Pranab Mukherjee leaves behind a faltering economy badly in need of pump-priming as he signed off as finance minister to become the Congress party’s President-designate.The PM may ring in changes at the ministry as he seeks to revive economic growth, arrest the rupee’s fall and deal with the fallout of a possible breakup of the euro zone.

In the US markets, stocks closed higher after a choppy session, rallying from a morning dip but closing well off the day’s highs. The major averages ended in the green led by energy and consumer discretionary stocks. In Europe, major indices finished flat while peripheral markets were under pressure ahead of the much-hyped EU summit. Investors are largely skeptical of any credible and definite resolution to emerge out of the EU meeting that starts on Thursday.

Meanwhile, giving some relief to India Inc the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has relaxed rules for promoters planning to reduce their stake in companies through an open offer of shares to institutional investors over the stock exchanges.

Aviation minister Ajit Singh will address media during a visit to the New Delhi airport today

Stocks in news

Apart from this, there will be lots of scrip specific movements to keep the markets buzzing, it has been reported that lessors have taken back 34 aircraft from cash-starved carrier Kingfisher Airlines on default of Rs 1,000 lease money. The stock is down 2 percent today.

Muthoot Finance surged 3.5% after rising more than 10% yesterday.

The infra stock may gain some strength, as the government has put in place a system to monitor progress for projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode and those being executed by private sector companies. The government has deferred a decision on the **Mahindra Group’**s proposal to bring in foreign direct investment for a defence production joint venture and on another application by pharma major, Pfizer, to bring in foreign equity in a company.

Tata Steel may delay restart of its blast furnace at Port Talbot. The company has reportedly said that it had announced plans to shut its No. 4 blast furnace at Port Talbot in July as part of a 125-day, GBP185 million project to rebuild the furnace.

Reliance Power has synchronized the first of two units of its 600 MW Butibori thermal power project, near Nagpur. Power generated will mainly be distributed to industrial as well as distribution utilities in Maharashtra. The stock is up 3 percent.

State-run UCO Bank needs close to Rs 14000 crore over the next five years to meet the new Basel-III capital norms, chairman and managing director Arun Kaul told The Business Standard.

Reliance Industries Ltd has demanded tripling of its KG-D6 gas price from April 1, 2014 after the current below-market rate of $4.205 per million British thermal unit expires.

Maruti Suzuki India is gearing up to introduce by the end of this year a new 800cc car that is likely to be more fuel efficient, but also more expensive, than its existing bestselling model Alto.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to clamp down on gold coin sales by banks, amid rising bullion imports adding pressure to the current account deficit and weakening rupee, reported the Business Standard today.

Some of the foreign banks are in touch with the finance ministry in a bid to enlist government help to get the Reserve Bank of India to speed up decisions on their applications for new branches.

An official confirmed to Economic Times that at least three foreign banks had approached the finance ministry for speedy action on their application and some of the governments involved had also raised the issue in their bilateral negotiations.