Moneycontrol Bureau
The Nifty is expected to open soft, tracking negative Asian markets as investors see little reason to be cheerful about the impending EU summit.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes over the finance ministry after two decades, facing twin hurdles of maintaining growth and checking inflation. Will this news be positive for the market this morning?
Global MarketsIn 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.
European markets ended flat as dampened expectations of fresh crisis fighting measures from politicians and ongoing global growth worries weighed on sentiment.
Ratings agency Egan Jones has downgraded Germany by a notch to A-plus from AA-minus before citing the massive uncollectable receivables which Egan Jones says stands at 700 billion euro. Rivals Fitch, S&P & Moody's, all have Germany at AAA. The markets, however, almost shrugged off the news.
Meantime euro zone finance ministers held a teleconference overnight to try and iron out their differences ahead of Thursday's EU summit. Earlier officials in Brussels outlined their vision for a more integrated region including proposals to grant a single body the power to change national budgets.
Onto Spain, the country's economics minister said that negotiating terms of the banking aid package is complex and will take time.
Currencies & CommoditiesIn other asset classes, the euro fell to two-week lows as Spanish bond yields rose and hopes faded that the European summit would make progress in resolving the region's debt crisis. In commodities, Brent crude sees marginal losses in Asia trade after rising over 2% close to USD 93 a barrel. Gold futures fell to USD 1,574/oz amid fears of deflation caused by disappointing US consumer confidence data and Europe's ongoing debt crisis.
Indian MarketIt was completely a rangebound session for the BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty on Tuesday as the market took its time to digest lower than expected measures announced by the RBI to curb the rupee's slide and weak global cues.
The BSE benchmark rose 24.42 points to close at 16,906.58 after moving in a range of 131 points intraday. The NSE benchmark moved up 6.15 points to 5,120.80 after hitting an intraday high of 5,134.55 and low of 5,095.50.
Market regulator Sebi relaxes guidelines for offers for sale. The gap between two issues has been reduced to two weeks and indicative prices will now be disclosed in the last hour of the session. For the institutional segment, investors can now apply with either 100% or ad hoc margin.
Stocks in NewsIn stock specific action, a move that's seen benefitting for Reliance Infra and Tata Power, power tariffs in Delhi have seen a steep hike with domestic prices hiked by 24% and commercial prices hiked by 19.5%.
News reports indicate OMCs are likely to slash petrol prices by up to Rs 4 a litre from July 1.
And woes continue for Kingfisher Airlines, after news reports indicate the lessors have taken back 34 aircrafts between March and June, owing to non-payment of lease rentals which stand at around Rs 1,000 crore.
L&T Finance is considering issuing secured redeemable NCDs worth Rs 200 crore.
RIL wants a triple price for the KG D6 gas it produces from April 1, 2014, reports the PTI.
The sharp rise in gold imports has the Reserve Bank worried. CNBC-TV18 reported that the central bank is now internally debating on banning banks from selling gold coins.
Petronet LNG to operate its 5mn tonne Kochi terminal at 20% of capacity due to delay in commissioning of pipeline, reports the Business Standard.
Godrej Properties launches premium housing project in Mumbai, according to NewsWire18.
HCL Info plans to hive off its hardware business into a separate unit, reports the Business Standard.
AC & 1st Class rail fares may be hiked by 3.6% from July 1, reports the PTI.
Chelsea Saldanha
chelsea.saldanha@network18online.com 
