Benchmark equity indices witnessed yet another day of consolidation on Thursday as the markets lacked clear leadership from any of the heavyweight stock. Key indices touched their one and a half month highs in the earlier part of trade after starting the day on a positive footing. But persistent rise in the primary articles' inflation indicated by the government data in the latter part of the day raised the concerns that the central bank may increase the cash reserve ratio (CRR) in the near term to curtail the liquidity. This resulted in markets giving away all their gains in the last hour of trade. The global cues remained supportive throughout the day with outstanding gains from the Japanese market on fall in the yen. Back home, investors continued to initiate long positions in shares belonging to healthcare, metal and realty counters while auto and capital goods counters saw some profit booking in trade. Cement stocks made a smart recovery from the day's lows during the session on likely upward revision in the cement prices. Auto major, Tata Motors shed over 3% in trade after witnessing big gains for last three trading sessions. Broader indices outperfomed the benchmarks. Finally, the BSE Sensex added 15.77 points or 0.09% to close at 17,185.68, while the S&P CNX Nifty advanced 8.45 points or 0.16% to shut shop at 5131.70. The market breadth on the BSE remained positive; the gainers outnumbered the losers in a ratio of 1.48:1 while 73 shares were unchanged in trade. The 30-share BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 17,361.27 and 17,128.21, respectively. The major gainers on the index were RCom up 2.54%, Hindalco Industries up 2.42%, ACC up 2.05%, Grasim Industries up 2.04% and SBI up 2.02%. The major losers on the Sensex were Tata Motors down 3.34%, HUL down 1.89%, Jaiprakash Associates down 1.11 %, ICICI Bank down 1% and Hero Honda down 0.95%. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices surged 0.39% and 0.92%, respectively. India's food price inflation continues to soar even as the economy registered a strong GDP growth in the second quarter, raising possibility that the Reserve bank of India (RBI) may have to take action on curtailing the liquidity in the system sooner rather than later. As per the data released by the government on Thursday, the wholesale price index (WPI) for the week ended 21 November, 2009 in respect of 'Primary Articles' rose by 0.8% to 281.9 from 279.7 for the previous week. The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 12.53% for the said week against 11.04% for the previous week and 11.98% during the corresponding week last year. In the BSE sectoral space, Healthcare (HC) up 1.66%, Metal up 1.19%, Realty up 0.58%, Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) up 0.56% and Oil & Gas up 0.51% were the main gainers. Ranbaxy (up 5.67%) from HC, Hindustan Zinc (up 7.16%) from Metal, Sobha Developers (up 4.06%) from Realty, NHPC (up 2.40%) from PSU and BPCL (up 2.14%) from Oil & Gas were the main gainers on the respective indices. On the other hand, Auto down 0.31% and Capital Goods (CG) down 0.06% were the main losers in the BSE sectoral space. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cleared the air on provisioning coverage requirements by banks which it had raised in the last quarterly policy review. The RBI had observed in the policy that there was a wide heterogeneity and variance in the level of provisioning coverage ratio across different banks. It therefore felt that there was a need for uniform and mandatory provisioning ratio to be maintained by all banks. As a result, in order to improve the provisioning cover and enhancing the soundness of individual banks, the banking regulator advised banks "to augment their provisioning cushions consisting of specific provisions against NPAs as well as floating provisions, and ensure that their total provisioning coverage ratio, including floating provisions, is not less than 70 per cent". It further directed banks to achieve this norm by not later than end-September 2010. The 50-share S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 5181 and 5106.60, respectively. The top gainers on the Nifty were Cipla up 5.56%, Ranbaxy up 5.06%, RPower up 4.92%, Siemens up 4.74% and Hindalco Industries up 2.56%. The top losers on the Nifty were Tata Motors down 3.27%, IDFC down 2.82%, Suzlon down 2.30%, ICICI Bank down 1.73% and HUL down 1.66% . Even as the gross domestic product (GDP) growth runs ahead of the estimates, direct tax collections of government of India over the April-November period this fiscal has managed only a 3.7% growth at Rs 1.83 lakh crore, up from Rs 1.77 lakh crore collected in the same eight-month period last year. Looking at a disaggregate level, the tax paid by corporates registered a growth of 3.17% to Rs 113,210 crore during the period under review as compared to Rs 109,735 crore in the corresponding period last year, while personal income tax grew by 4.53% to Rs 70,262 crore from Rs 67,215 crore, a government statement said. European markets were trading in the green. France's CAC 40 surged 1.02%, Germany's DAX rose 0.88% and Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.54%. The Indian government is likely to release its carbon cuts target on Thursday even though it continues to bat for a differentiated response or the principle of 'polluters pay'. The move aims at ensuring that India has something substantial at hand when it attends the Copenhagen summit later this month. However, many within as well as outside the government feel that India should only offer energy intensity reduction targets or in other terms targets to cut energy use per unit of GDP. What the Indian government is likely to offer is commitment to reduce carbon output per unit of GDP which some feel may retard the growth of manufacturing sector as it would be forced to make additional investments to move to a low carbon trajectory. Asian markets ended mostly higher on Thursday led by the strong gains in the Japanese market, which added almost 4% in the day's trade. Investors rushed for shares of Japanese exporters as the apprehensions of rising yen faded. Indications from Bank of America Corp that it will refund $45 billion of the government's bailout package also boosted investors' confidence across the globe. Hang Seng surged 264.30 points or 1.19% to 22,553.87, Nikkei 225 added 368.73 points or 3.84% to 9,977.67, Straits Times gained 11.84 points or 0.42% to 2,808.18, Seoul Composite soared 23.37 points or 1.47% to 1,615 and Taiwan Weighted advanced 7.05 points or 0.09% to 7,684.67. On the other hand, Shanghai Composite declined 5.12 points or 0.16% to 3,264.63. | 
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