No lessons learnt

But life is a great school. It thrashes and bangs and teaches you. - Nikita Khrushchev. The market remains the best teacher these days but there are no lessons learnt really, as the key Indian indices may remain stuck in a tight trading range with no clear bias. The focus remains on politics with no signs of relief from the ongoing feud over "coal-gate". The outlook remains cautious as long as the Nifty trades below 5280. A move below 5220 could aggravate selling pressure. We are staring at a lower start owing to weak global cues. US stocks closed mixed as trading resumed following an extended weekend. A jump in Apple shares helped Nasdaq end a tad higher while the Dow finished off session lows. Manufacturing activity in the US dropped for a third straight month, and construction spending also slowed. The data adds to the mounting speculation of an impending Fed announcement on further monetary easing. Thursday’s ECB meeting and Friday’s US jobs data will have some bearing on global sentiment for the remaining part of the week. Wall Street has its task cut out this month, as September has been the worst month for S&P 500 over the past 30 years. Asian stocks are down today for a fifth successive session while gold too has eased after Australia’s Q2 GDP growth missed forecast. Meanwhile, leaked remarks by ECB president set off a rally in Spanish and Italian government-bond markets. Trend in FII flows: The FIIs were net buyers of Rs 3.04bn in the cash segment on Tuesday while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers of Rs 1.05bn, as per the provisional figures released by the NSE. The FIIs were net sellers of Rs 3.5bn in the F&O segment on Tuesday, according to the provisional NSE data. The foreign funds were net sellers of Rs 471mn in the cash segment on Monday and the mutual funds were net sellers of Rs 1.5bn on the same day, according to the SEBI figures. Global Data Watch today: Australia AiG Performance of Services Index (Aug), Japan BJJ’s Board Member Miyao’s speech, Australia GDP (Q2), China HSBC China Services PMI (Aug), France ILO Unemployment (Q2), Spain PMI - Services (Aug), Italy Markit Services PMI (Aug), France Markit Services PMI (Aug), Germany Markit Services PMI (Aug), EU Markit Services PMI (Aug), EU Markit PMI Composite (Aug), UK Markit Services PMI (Aug), Germany 10-year Bond Auction, Italy 10-year Bond Auction, Spain 5-year Bond Auction, EU Retail Sales (Jul), Greece Unemployment Rate (Jun), US Nonfarm Productivity (Q2), US Unit Labor Costs (Q2) and US ISM New York Index (Aug). Important News: Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal has reportedly said that the Opposition's demand for cancellation of coal block allocations is a "conspiracy" to protect the allottees. The RBI has estimated that the Government will have to infuse Rs 70,000 crore to Rs 90,000 crore in capital into state-run banks to meet the new global prudential capital requirements. RBI Governor D. Subbarao on Tuesday said that diluting the government stake in public sector banks below 51% could be one of the options before the government to capitalise them to be compliant with Basel-III requirements. Gold prices touched an all-time record of Rs 31,850 per 10 gram in the bullion market on Monday following strong global cues. The Finance Ministry has reportedly told the Petroleum Ministry that it has no funds left to subsidise fuels. The prices of petrol, diesel and LPG are likely to be increased next week after the monsoon session of Parliament concludes, reports said. Reliance Power will soon be among the world's largest coal cos while its power projects are on schedule to benefit from the captive coal availability, Anil Ambani said at the company's AGM on Tuesday. Auditors of Kingfisher Airlines said the airline's actual losses in the last fiscal were more than the reported Rs 2328 crore. Morgan Stanley on Tuesday said that India was the eighth best-performing emerging market in August and second-best performing Asian market. BCCI has reportedly failed to find a solution for its IPL team Deccan Chargers, as buyers rejected the price being asked by team owners. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram met insurers on Tuesday to discuss steps to channelise their long-term savings into infrastructure sector and other issues relating to the sector.