The stock markets remain highly volatile ahead of the Union Budget, to be presented on Monday. Both, the Sensex and Nifty ended the day in the green; however, markets will get a clear direction only after the Budget

Tracking the gains in the Asian stock markets this morning, post the easing of crude prices, the domestic market opened in the green. The market was jittery ahead of the announcement of the Economic Survey and the Railway Budget, which resulted in the Sensex dipping into the red in early trade and the Nifty was almost there. However, buying support soon lifted the indices higher and they stayed range-bound till 1pm.

With no mention of any credible projects for rail infrastructure that related companies could benefit from, the market pared early gains and slipped to the day's low in post-noon trade. Buying support in fast-moving consumer goods, banking and auto lifted the market into the green in continuing volatile trade and closed positive, snapping a three-day fall.

The Sensex and Nifty opened with a gap-up at 17,775 and 5,321, 10-day opening lows. Although the market ended positive today, the indicators have started finding some direction. The market is headed for a fall. The manner in which the market has lost in the past few days shows that the gains are very slow. This shows that the bears still have control on the market.

The Sensex and the Nifty hit an intra-day low of 17,470 and 5,233, respectively. The intra-day high for the Sensex was 17,812 and for the Nifty it was at 5,338. The Sensex closed 69 points up at 17,701 while the Nifty gained 41 points at 5,304. The advance-decline ratio on the National Stock Exchange was 600:795.

The market will get a clear direction after the close of trade on Monday, when the Union Budget is going to be presented. However, all rallies are likely to be short-lived.

The market breadth on the key indices was mixed today. While the Sensex closed with 17 losers and 13 gainers, the Nifty had 33 advancing stocks and 17 in the declining list. The broader indices lagged behind today with the BSE Mid-cap index declining 0.22% and the BSE Small-cap index falling by 0.31%.

BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods (up 2.20%), BSE Bankex (up 1.86%) and BSE Auto (up 0.75%) were the top gainers in the sectoral space while BSE IT (down 0.72%), BSE Capital Goods and BSE TECk (down 0.49% list) were the top losers.

Tata Motors (up 4.43%), ICICI Bank (up 3.55%), ITC (up 3%), State Bank of India (up 2.09%) and Jindal Steel (up 1.87%) were the major performers on the Sensex while Reliance Communications (down 5.40%), Reliance Infrastructure (down 4.58%), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 3.38%), Hindalco Industries (down 2.48%) and Sterlite Industries (down 2.23%) topped the losers' list.

According to the Economic Survey, the economy is expected to revert to the pre-crisis growth level of 9% in the next fiscal, buoyed by strong fundamentals. "Based on the performance of the economy over the last five years and analysis of the underlying trends... India's real gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow by 9% (+/-0.25%) in 2011-12," the pre-budget survey tabled in Parliament today stated.

Presenting her third budget in UPA-II in the Lok Sabha today, railway minister Mamata Banerjee spared the passengers of any increase in fares and proposed no hike in freight rates, while announcing 56 new train services, including nine non-stop Duronto trains and three Shatabdis. The budget has proposed the highest-ever plan outlay of Rs57,630 crore for 2011-12.

The minister also announced the introduction on a pilot basis of a pan-India, multi-purpose 'Go India' smart card, which would be a single-window package for passengers for seamless payment for tickets for long distances, suburban and metro journeys.

Markets in Asia finished on an optimistic note on easing crude prices. Oil prices retreated after the International Energy Agency assured it was prepared to release its emergency oil stockpiles to offset any shortfall resulting from the flare-up in Libya. The Hang Seng gained for the first time in four days, as investors went bargain-hunting after the index had plunged to a five-month closing low on Thursday. The Shanghai Composite settled unchanged after gaining 0.3% yesterday.

The Hang Seng jumped 1.82%, the Jakarta Composite rose 0.13%, the Nikkei 225 advanced 0.71%, the Straits Times surged 1.75%, the Seoul Composite gained 0.69% and the Taiwan Weighted advanced 0.68%. On the other hand, the KLSE Composite ended 0.04% and the Shanghai settled flat with a negative bias of 0.02 points.

Crude for April delivery jumped 2% to $99.20 a barrel in New York. It is up 14% for the week, the biggest jump for a benchmark futures contract in two years. In London, Brent for April delivery advanced 1.7% to $113.25 a barrel.

With no new proposals that would enthuse rail equipment companies, stocks of companies in the sector fell. Stone India declined 7.53%, Texmaco tanked 7.98%, Titagarh Wagons plunged 13.06%, BEML lost 2.90%, Kernex Microsytems declined 4.97%, Kalindee Rail Nirman tumbled 13.74% and Hind Rectifiers declined 13.84%. Bucking the trend, Container Corporation of India gained 3.15%.

Omaxe Infrastructure & Construction, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Omaxe (up 0.93%) has been awarded a project valued at around Rs136 crore by the Ministry of Defence. The project is for construction of dwelling units including allied services for officers, JCOs/OR at Deolali (Army) and Nasik (Air Force).

Kajaria Ceramics (up 1.55%) has acquired 51% stake in Gujarat-based Soriso Ceramic for a total consideration of Rs5.60 crore. Consequently, Soriso Ceramic is now a subsidiary of Kajaria Ceramics. The latter has an annual capacity of 2.30 million sq metres per annum of rectified ceramic floor tiles, the addition of which would take the Kajaria's total capacity to 30.60 million sq metres by March 2011.