10:00AM New York - 7:30PM Mumbai – Power Ministry is looking for ways to allow utilities companies to borrow in the international markets. Motilal Oswal IPO jumped 19%.

Sensex in Mumbai trading lost 54 or 0.35% to close at 15,542.77. CNX Nifty fell 10.8 or 0.24% to close at 4,497.05. Rupee recovered to 40.60 against dollar from 40.65 in Friday trading.

Of the stocks trading on BSE, 1,410 gained, 1,356 declined, and 65 closed unchanged. Daily turnover on the exchange declined to 4,935 crore rupees from 4,070 crore rupees in Monday’s trading. In trading on National Stock Exchange volume declined to 10,856 crore rupees from 8,908 crore rupees a day ago.

Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 20 fell and 10 gained. Wipro led the decliners in the index with a fall of 2.4%.

Jindal Steel & Power soared 5% to 4,150 rupees after the Bolivian senate approved the deal between the country’s government and Jindal to develop iron ore mine and build steel plant. Jindal has said to invest $2.3 billion in the project over the next ten years.

Rallies India jumped 3% to 325 rupees after the news that it is exploring a deal to purchase Arysta LifeScience Corp from private equity company Olympus Capital. The other bidder, United Phosphorus added 1.8% to 345 rupees. Four international companies in addition to two India companies are bidding for the Japanese company. The life science and crop protection company is valued at $2 billion or nearly 9,000 crore rupees.
Blue Dart Express increased 2.5% to 622 rupees on the news that it plans to spend 1,000 crore rupees to expand its fleet of aircraft, material handling equipment, and ground handling facilities.

Auto makers declined after a steep rise in the last week of trading. Maruti Suzuki led the decliners with a loss of 2% to 859 rupees followed by 1.5% loss in Tata Motors to 691 rupees. Mahindra & Mahindra fell 0.7% to 696 rupees.

Reliance Industries fell 6.40 rupees to 1,980 after reaching a new high of 2,007 rupees. The company agreed to acquire assets of Malaysian polyester company Hualon a day ago.

Weak U.S. trading and concerns of economic slowdown hurt software exporters again. Infosys fell 2.3% to 1,828 rupees, Wipro declined 2.5% to 455 rupees, and Satyam Computers lost 2.3% to 432 rupees.

Motilal Oswal priced its offering at the high end of its filing range to 825 rupees and valuing the company at 31 times earnings. The offering is oversubscribed by 27 times. The stock closed in BSE trading at 977.45 rupees, up 19% from its offering price. Other brokerage companies fell. JRG securities fell 6.6% to 53 rupees and Emkay Shares & Stock Brokers declined 8% to 142 rupees.

HDFC gained 2% to 2,145 rupees and reached intraday high of 2,153 rupees.
Nitco Tiles increased 4% to 239 rupees after the news that the company is venturing to distribute cement from Pakistan via MMTC. The government sole import agency Minerals and Materials Trading Company acts as sole import and export entity for most commodities import in India.

In other trading, NTPC, the domestic leader in power generation, gained 2.3% to 195 rupees after adding 2.5% on Monday. The Ministry of Power has asked government to relax conditions for borrowing funds in international markets in foreign currency.


09:45AM Wall Street advanced at opening. Dow was led higher by McDonald’s.

Wall Street rallied at opening ahead of Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke''s speech, with investors looking for clues about a possible interest-rate reduction. In addition, market welcomed an in-line-with expectations trade deficit report. The Commerce Department said the U.S. trade deficit narrowed 0.3% to $59.2 billion in July on record exports of farm goods, autos and other products.

The Dow industrials rose nearly 100 points boosted by fast-food giant McDonald''s Corp. (MCD) Company''s stock jumped 3% on a strong rise in August sales. Dow component Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) also contributed to the strength posted by the blue-chip average. The stock rose 0.4% after the retailer cut its Q2 profit by $153 million, due to expenses from selling its German retail operations.

Among companies driven by analyst comments, PepsiCo (PEP) rose 1.3% after it was upgraded to buy from hold at Goldman Sachs, citing improving fundamentals and reasonable valuation. The broker also upgraded the beverage sector to neutral from attractive.

The upward trend was limited by Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) which fell 1% in reports that the U.S. largest mortgage lender had hired Goldman Sachs to line up another multi-billion investment in the company. A few weeks ago Bank of America (BAC) invested $2 billion in the financial firm.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 73.73, or 0.56%, to 13,201.58. The Standard & Poor''s 500 index rose 7.45, or 0.51%, to 1,459.15, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 16.44, or 0.64%, to 2,575.55.

09:00AM U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher opening ahead of Ben Bernanke speech.