Shares lacklustre; Pantaloon Retail down 3%; rupee flat

The Indian equity market continued to lack lustre, as the indices opened with a downward bias with no serious business taking place in Parliament due to the political stalemate.The Sensex opened at 17607.58 and Nifty at 5327, both 0.14 percent lower.

The BJP and the ruling Congress continued their fight over the CAG report on coal allocation. Adding to the worries was RBI Governor D Subbarao’s reiteration that inflation needs to fall further or risk more damage to the economy, an indication that an expectation of rate cut in the next policy review was unfounded.

RBI Executive Director DK Mohanty has said the country’s import cover reserves may fall further in 2012-13 (Apr-Mar) due to lack of capital flows.

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Gloablly, the euro remained firm while Asian shares steadied on Wednesday as investors awaited US Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s Friday speech for signs of whether the bank will opt for more monetary stimulus and a European Central Bank policy meeting next week.

The rupee opened flat at 55.68 against the dollar.

Among the sectoral indices, IT, metals and auto were major losers, while bank stocks almost stabilised. TCS, which was 2 percent up on Tuesday, snapped gains and was down half a percent. Tata Motors was down 1.5 percent.

Midcaps also had a flat start barring a few stocks which saw some action. Tata Sponge was up 4.39 percent after Tata Steel bought a controlling stake in the company. JP Associates was down 7.5 percent after the company said it is launching an FCCB issue of $200 mn

Stocks in News

Sun Pharma was up half a percent after the company received the US FDA permitted its arm to resume production of two products at its sites in Michigan.

Pantaloon Retailwas down 3 percent after media reports that Aditya Birla Nuvo is looking to rework stake buy deal value post more-than-expected decline in April-June quarter results.

ONGCextended Tuesday’s losses and was down 1 percent.