[R]8:45AM U.S. stock futures pointed a flat market opening.[/R]

U.S. stock futures pointed to a flat market opening on Monday following a rebound Friday after steep declines on concerns about rising bond yields and global interest rates. Yields on the 10-year Treasury were at 5.12% in early action.

Among companies in focus, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ: chart) was upgraded to neutral from underperform by Credit Suisse. General Electric (GE: chart) and Microsoft (MSFT: chart) failed to reach an agreement over a bid offer for Dow Jones (DJ: chart), meant to head off a $5 billion unsolicited bid from News Corp. (NWS: chart).

On the deal news front, British packaging company Rexam PLC announced Monday that it agreed to acquire the plastics packaging unit of specialty closure systems maker Owens-Illinois (OI: chart) in a cash deal of $1.8 billion. S&P 500 futures edged 2.7 points lower at 1,519.80 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 3.75 points at 1,930.25. Dow industrial futures fell 18 points.


[R]7:30AM -6:30PM Mumbai Sensex finishes higher, erases gains on late sell-off.[/R]

The Sensex on BSE finished Monday 19.60 points higher, or 0.14%, at 14,083.41.

The market-breadth, which was strong in the morning session, turned negative in late trading. As 1,160 stocks advanced, 1,375 declined and 86 stocks remained unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 12 advanced, while all the rest declined. The turnover on BSE was Rs 3,484 crore, much lower than Rs 4,618 crore on Friday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 7670 crore, also lower than Rs 10,577 crore on Monday.

Economic news

New issue, property developer DLH managed to sell all its institutional part of its IPO, which is Rs 9625 crore, within an hour. The IPO is 10.27% of the capital of the company.

The rupee gained 0.7% against the euro, today. The euro was at Rs 54.60 today, from Rs 54.99 on Friday. The dollar bought Rs 40.91 today, as compared with Rs 40.98 on Friday.

Trading highlights

Reliance was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 114.50 crore followed by Nitin Fire and Reliance Communications.

Advancers

Hero Honda soared over 3% to Rs 703. Cigarette company ITC and metal large-cap Hindalco surged 2% each to Rs 154 and Rs 161, respectively. Hero Honda declined in the past few sessions on worries of slowing sales.Hindalco gained for the fourth time in a row on speculation that the company may become a bod target for Alcan and Sterlite.

HDFC and Infosys rallied around 1.5% each to Rs 1,779 and Rs 1,980, respectively. Index heavy Reliance Industries advanced 0.5% to Rs 1,668.

Decliners

Reliance Communications and Grasim were the leading decliners, shedding around 2% each to Rs 505 and Rs 2,347, respectively. Other declining large-caps were State Bank of India down 1.3% to Rs 1,340, and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation which lost 0.3% to Rs 862.

ICICI Bank lost 0.4% to Rs 900. ICICI Bank''s follow-on public issue in the range of Rs 10000-Rs 11000 crore, will be open in the third week of June 2007. Dr.Reddy''s and Tata Steel lost around 1% each at Rs 625 and Rs 580, respectively.