Morning market brief

Asian markets declined in the initial session of trade on Tuesday (April 29), led by airlines and shipbuilding companies, on concern that the rising fuel and steel prices will hurt earnings. The major indices, however, recovered to trade in the positive terrain, but not with much gain.

Korean Air Lines declined by the most in two weeks after oil prices touched the record high.

The world`s biggest shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries, declined after Credit Suisse Group cut the company`s profit estimates.

Hong Kong`s index Hang Seng rose 78.09 points, or 0.30%, to trade at 25,744.38.

China`s Shanghai Composite rose 41.36 points, or 1.19%, to trade at 3,516.08.

Taiwan`s Taiex index declined 15.80 points, or 0.17%, to trade at 9,063.80.

South Korea`s KOSPI lost 9.65 points, or 0.53%, to trade at 1,813.52.

Singapore`s Straits Times lost 27.13 points, or 0.85%, to trade at 3,174.50. (8.12 a.m., IST)

Japanese markets are closed today.

US stocks ended flat on Monday (April 28) as investors turned cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve`s two-day policy meeting, which starts today (April 29).

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 20.11 points, or 0.16%, to 12,871.75. The NASDAQ composite index rose 1.47 points, or 0.06%, to 2,424.40.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite to its price, fell to 3.82% from 3.87% late Friday.

Majority of Indian ADRs ended on a negative note barring Sterlite, MTNL, Tata Communications and Patni Computers that ended marginally higher 2.13% at USD 21.60, 0.36% at USD 5.65, 0.40% at USD 24.90 and 0.39% at USD 12.78, respectively.

Losers:

Company	USD	% Decline
ICICI Bank	45.38	3.86
Wipro	12.69	0.63
Infosys	42.29	1.92
HDFC Bank	111.59	2.86
Satyam	24.35	1.06
Tata Motors	15.88	1.24
Dr Reddy`s	15.44	1.22

Indian stock markets on Tuesday are likely to trade volatile ahead of credit policy today (April 29). Participants are of the view that there can be a quarter percentage (25 bps) hike in Repo rates. Nifty was trading in a range and the participants were sitting on sidelines ahead of credit policy tomorrow (April 29). Participants are of the view that there can be a quarter percentage (25 bps) hike in Repo rates which was previously hiked on Mar. 31, 2007.