Nothing to worry!

Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say - Will Durant

Bulls could extend Tuesday’s rally thanks to the Federal Reserve’s move to do nothing on its ultra loose monetary policy. What’s more, the US central bank offered a more optimistic assessment on the state of the labour market.

European stocks finished higher, extending gains late in the session after Standard & Poor's said Greece was on track to meet its near-term budget goals.

Asian markets are mostly higher this morning. It’s a no-brainer that given the slightly optimistic global cues, the Indian market too will advance further. Whether it closes up or not is anybody’s guess. It’s best to do nothing with the stocks you hold now.

The Nifty could take a shot at 5300 in the near term, provided global markets remain firm. However, it may take a while for it to touch 5500. On the way down, strong support is now seen at 5100.

One cause for concern of late has been the low traded volume and constant selling by local funds. At the same time, volatility remains pretty low. One may see the main indices consolidate in a range of 5100-5300.

Bulls were in a festive mood on Tuesday, as the market finally chose the auspicious day of Gudi Padwa to march ahead after several days of sluggish movement. The index heavyweight Reliance Industries led from the front amid expectations of strong show in the Oct-Dec quarter.

In terms of global cues, markets in Asia was pretty much subdued but European stock benchmarks gained as the region’s finance ministers worked out a strategy for emergency loans for Greece. US stock futures were nearly unchanged ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting.

The BSE Sensex ended at 17,383 surging 218 points after touching a high of 17,417 and a low of 17,150. The NSE Nifty surged 69 points to end at 5,198.

In Asia, the Nikkei in Japan was down 0.3%, while Australia's S&P/ASX edged higher by 0.4%. Shanghai SE Composite ended higher by 0.5% and Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was down 0.4%.

In Europe, stocks were trading with a positive bias. The DAX in Germany was up 0.9%, the CAC 40 index in France was up 0.9% and the FTSE in the UK was up 0.6%.

Coming back to India, among the BSE sectoral indices, the Oil & Gas index was the top gainer, adding 2.7%, followed by the Metal index that was up 1.7% and the BSE Capital Goods index was up 1.7%. Even, the BSE Mid-Cap index added 1% and BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.2%.

Outside the frontline indices, the big gainers in the broader market were Jai Corp, M&M Fin, Idea, Indian Hotels and Ashok Leyland. On the other hand, losers included NMDC, Hindustan Copper, Nestle and PFC.

Reliance Industries plans to buy three Shale gas assets in the US according to reports. The company may acquire a 40% to 50% stake in the US based company and the deal size is likely to be between US$1bn and US$2bn, added reports.

The stock shot up by over 4% to end at Rs1067. The scrip opened at Rs1027 it touched an intra-day high of Rs1070 and a low of Rs1028 and recorded volumes of over 10.5mn shares on BSE.

Shares of Bharti Airtel have slipped by 1.6% to end at Rs294 after reports stated that the special auditors appointed by the government to probe the issue revealed that Bharti Airtel may owe the government Rs1.74bn. The scrip opened at Rs295 it touched an intra-day high of Rs301 and a low of Rs292 and recorded volumes of over 0.82mn shares on BSE.

ITC has reportedly hiked prices by up to 20% following a duty hike in the budget. According to reports, ITC which had previously hiked the prices of its Gold Flake Kings brand by 7% prior to the budget, raised prices again by 8-20% across all brands. The stock ended flat at Rs259. It opened at Rs260 it touched an intra-day high of Rs261 and a low of Rs254 and recorded volumes of over 0.15mn shares on BSE.

Shares of Jet Airways advanced by 3% to end at Rs484 after the airline reported a 31% rise in its international traffic and 22% growth in domestic traffic in February compared with a year ago. Jetlite, Jet Airways' all economy subsidiary, registered a 10.4% growth in passenger traffic on a seat factor of 80% in February 2010.

The scrip opened at Rs470 it touched an intra-day high of Rs490 and a low of Rs471 and recorded volumes of over 0.25mn shares on BSE.

JSW Steel won additional carbon credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a project in the southern state of Karnataka. JSW Steel was awarded ~504,214 credits by the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. The additional credits are worth about 5.8mn euros.

Shares of JSW Steel advanced by 1.5% to end at Rs1198. The scrip opened at Rs1185 it touched an intra-day high of Rs1203 and a low of Rs1180 and recorded volumes of over 0.46mn shares on BSE.

Shares of Madhucon Projects surged by over 3.1% to end Rs153 after the company announced that it got a coal mining license in Indonesia for 30,970 hectares in South Sumatra region. The scrip opened at Rs155 it touched an intra-day high of Rs163 and a low of Rs152 and recorded volumes of over 0.3mn shares on BSE