SBI & Reliance gain 1%, autos weak; Nifty still holds 6200

Moneycontrol BureauLive Market Commentary

11:50 am Market outlook: Saurabh Mukherjea, CEO, Institutional Equities, Ambit Capital is still advising his clients to sell Maruti because of the uncertainty over the terms of transfer of the Gujarat car making plant to a Suzuki subsidiary. Also, he said this move by Maruti could set a precedent with other MNCs too adopting a similar structure to get around the curbs on royalty payments from April 1 onwards.

He is bullish on L&T and Cummins India and not very enthused about power utilities, calling it a “difficult trade” for fund managers to make money on.

11:40 am Deal talk: The Supreme Court is due to hear on Monday Nokia's appeal challenging a lower court ruling over transfer of its mobile handset plant in the country to Microsoft amid a tax dispute, reports Reuters.

Nokia last month appealed to the Indian Supreme Court saying the Delhi High Court had imposed "new conditions" over transfer of the plant, after previously allowing it.

The Supreme Court's website showed Nokia's appeal was listed to be heard on Monday. The court does not usually give a verdict on the first day of hearing.

Microsoft is buying Nokia's mobile phone business in a 5.4 billion euro deal.

11:30 am Udayan Mukherjee's comments: A pre-election rally is a given unless global cues don’t play spoilsports, says CNBC-TV18’s Udayan Mukherjee. Currently, he says, there are two-three things that seem to be negative like the US GDP number, the disappointing China PMI numbers and the political turmoil in Ukraine, says Udayan.

However, it does look like tresumption of the uptrend is likely to continue since the Nifty has taken support at the 200 day moving average (DMA), feels Udayan.

According to him the Nifty could well be on course back to 6400 levels, where it had started its correction from.

11:20 am Buzzing: Jaiprakash Power Ventures is reeling under pressure as investors are worried about valuation of the deal in which the company decided to sell two hydropower units to Abu Dhabi-based TAQA-led consortium. The stock lost as much as 13.7 percent intraday while it had surged 12 percent on Friday ahead of board meeting that took place on Saturday.

JP Power said it would sell 1400 MW hydro projects (300 MW hydroelectric plant and 1091 MW Karcham Wangtoo hydroelectric plant) to consortium led by TAQA India Power Ventures, INDO-INFRA Inc (Canadian investor), IDFC Alternatives' India Infrastructure Fund-II. According to CNBC-TV18 reports, these companies are going to own 51 percent, 39 percent and 10 percent in the project, respectively.

TAQA India Power Ventures is an indirectly owned and controlled subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC.

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The market is listless with no major trigger. The Sensex is up 11.66 points at 21131.78, and the Nifty is down 2.60 points at 6274.35. About 1256 shares have advanced, 851 shares declined, and 110 shares are unchanged.

The rupee is lower tracking weakness in Asian currencies. Weak October-December GDP data as well as importers' dollar demands weighs further. Currencies saw safe haven buying in the Swiss Franc and the yen due to escalating tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

Gilts though are steady in the absence of fresh cues on interest rates.

Gold saw safe haven buying with a jump of more than 1 percent while crude jumped to multi month highs on escalating geopolitical tensions.

Asian markets are weak as tensions between Ukraine and Russia dominates sentiment. Chinese PMI also dampened trade as it fell to an eight-month low of 50.2 in February.