Market declines for third straight day

The market suffered losses for the third straight day today, 17 August 2007. Domestic markets were dancing to world market tunes. Markets across the globe were inflicted with intense volatility. The benchmark BSE Sensex, however, gained substantial ground from an intra-day steep fall on back of recover in world markets. Turnover was quite high today.

The Sensex lost 216.69 points, or 1.51%, to 14,141.52. At the day’s low, the Sensex had tumbled 578.33 points for the day. The Sensex oscillated 538.68 points between 13,779.88 and 14,318.56 during the day.

From 15,017.21 on 13 August 2007, the Sensex has lost 875.69 points in three trading sessions at the current 14,141.52.

The S&P CNX Nifty shed 70.55 points, or 1.69%, to 4,108.05 today. The Nifty August 2007 futures settled at 4082, a discount of 26.05 points as compared to spot closing.

Most of the European markets opened on positive note, but later succumbed to selling pressure. Key benchmark indices in London, Germany and France were down by between 0.1% to 0.3%

Meanwhile, India's wholesale price index rose 4.05% in the 12 months to 4 August 2007, lower than the previous week's 4.45% due to a fall in food and manufactured product prices, government data showed on Friday, 17 August 2007.

Global markets have seen sell-off in the past few days on fears of liquidity crunch arising from mortgage defaults in the US housing's sub-prime sector coupled with yen carry trade unwinding. Investors have been borrowing in low interest-rate carrying yen and investing in high-yielding emerging markets.

FIIs sold shares worth Rs 2,548.50 crore in August 2007, till 14 August.

The market breadth was weak on BSE with 1,833 shares declining as compared to 888 that advanced, while 40 remained unchanged.

The BSE Mid-Cap index lost 92.97 points, or 1.46%, to 6,259.47 while the BSE Small-Cap index declined 102.46 points, or 1.31%, to 7,694.80. This means the fall in large caps was more severe than the decline in mid- and small-caps.

All the sectoral indices on BSE settled with losses, except the BSE Realty index, which gained 0.57% to 7,019.88.

The BSE Metal index (down 4.74% to 9,811.61), BSE Oil & Gas index (down 1.03% to 7,427.15), BSE PSU index (down 2.78% to 6,542.63), BSE Auto index (down 2.17% to 4,560.85), BSE Capital Goods index (down 1.51% to 12,029.90), BSE Healthcare index (down 1.12% to 3,487.30), Bankex (down 0.94% to 7,351.37), BSE IT index (down 2.95% to 4,500.40), and BSE TECk index (down 2.23% to 3,456.66) ended lower.

BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 6,482 crore as against Rs 5,646.63 crore on Thursday, 16 August 2007.

The NSE F&O turnover was Rs 64,879.41 crore as compared to Rs 46,447.43 crore on Thursday, 16 August 2007

Among the 30-members Sensex pack, 26 declined while the rest advanced.

Housing finance major HDFC was the top gainer. It gained 2.36% to Rs 1930 on 1.46 lakh shares. It recovered sharply from day’s low of Rs 1788.

Reliance Industries, the country’s largest private sector company and oil refining major, staged a sharp recovery from its day’s low of Rs 1700. It ended 0.59% higher at Rs 1749.35 on 18.12 lakh shares. It also hit a high of Rs 1775.

Reliance Energy (up 0.57% to Rs 721.60) and Wipro (up 0.56% to Rs 472) were the other gainers from the Sensex pack.

IT shares tumbled on intense selling pressure. India’s fourth largest software services exporter Satyam Computer Services plunged 6.07% to Rs 439 on high volumes of 41.87 lakh shares. It was the top loser from the Sensex pack. The fall was despite two block deals of 5.05 lakh shares struck in the counter at an average price of Rs 455.50 per share on BSE by 10:01 IST.

Infosys Technologies was down 3.11% to Rs 1851. It had plunged to a low of Rs 1745.15, a fall of 8.6% for the day.

India's largest software service exporter TCS slipped 3% to Rs 1055. As per reports, it is interested in buying UK-based financial services firm Prudential’s captive back office, having centres in the UK, Ireland, Scotland and India. Prudential has offshoring centres in London and Reading in UK, Dublin and Belfast in Ireland, Sterling in Scotland and two centres in Mumbai.

Metal scrips suffered a severe setback in the market meltdown after copper and zinc three-month futures fell on the Shanghai exchange today, 17 august 2007. Tata Steel (down 5.45% to Rs 544), Sterlite Industries (down 7.59% to Rs 516), Hindustan Zinc (down 2.70% to Rs 670), Hindalco Industries (down 3.70% to Rs 140), and Sail (down 4.65% to Rs 136.50), edged lower. The BSE metal index had fallen 6.5% to 10,299.61 yesterday, 16 August 2007.

ONGC (down 4.45% to Rs 782.25), Tata Steel (down 5.45% to Rs 544), and Hindlaco (down 3.72% to Rs 139.90) were the other losers from the Sensex pack.

Zylog Systems settled at Rs 431.10 on BSE, a premium of 23.14% over the IPO price of Rs 350. The scrip debuted at Rs 525, also its high. It also touched a low of Rs 356.20. On BSE, 70.18 lakh shares of the scrip were traded.

Gabriel India (down 13.85% to Rs 26.80), Alpa Labs (down 11.42% to Rs 43.45), Baba Arts (down 13.64% to Rs 50), Sakthi Sugars (down 10.56% to Rs 66.05), ABC Bearings (down 7.95% to Rs 101.30), and Advanta (down 7.70% to Rs 768), were the top losers from small-cap and mid-cap basket.

Sahara Housing (up 20% to Rs 51.30), Nahar Industrial (up 9.67% to Rs 122.50), Siel (up 12.94% to Rs 24), Speciality Papers (up 10% to Rs 70.20), and Kirloskar Pneumatic (up 10% to Rs 525), were the top gainers from small-cap and mid-cap basket.

Nagarjuna Fertilisers galloped 16.70% to Rs 32.15 on huge volumes of 4.20 crore shares boosted by rumors that Reliance Industries is looking to acquire the company at a price of around Rs 45 per share. However the company denied the rumours. Meanwhile, NSE lifted the ban on building fresh derivatives positions in the stock.

India’s largest real-estate developer DLF slipped 0.52% to Rs 581, off its day’s high of Rs 596, after it paid Rs 1675 crore for acquiring 38 acres of land in west Delhi from DCM Shriram Consolidated (DSCL) and the Lohia Group. This is the most expensive land deal in the country so far. It surpasses the Rs 1582 crore rival Unitech paid for 300 acres in Noida last year.

Unitech (up 3.60% to Rs 483.10) and Sobha Developers (up 4.30% to Rs 775.10) gained from the real-estate pack.

Batliboi gained 1.56% to Rs 160 after it scheduled an extra-ordinary general meeting (EGM) on 12 September 2007 to consider stock-split proposal from the present face value of Rs 10 to Rs 5 each.

PSU Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL), India's fifth largest refiner, slumped 9.20% to Rs 224 after it went ex-dividend from today for a dividend of Rs 12 per share on face value of Rs 10 each.

Balmer Lawrie jumped 3.67% to Rs 394.45 after Reliance Capital Trustee Company purchased 1.54 lakh shares in a block deal at Rs 380.19 per share on BSE yesterday, 16 August 2007.

NIIT fell 5.10% to Rs 880. Its shareholders approved raising FII investment limit from 49% to 60% at its 24th annual general meeting (AGM) held on 25 July 2007.

PTC India slipped 1.24% to Rs 75.80, off its high of Rs 78.90 on reports that Tata Power had offloaded a 4.2% stake in the company for Rs 50 crore in the open market since April 2007.

Triveni Engineering and Industries rose 2% to Rs 63.60 after it signed an agreement with Beijing's Beizhong Steam Turbine Generator for distribution of the Chinese firm's products. The agreement facilitates Triveni Engineering & Industries to enter technology transfers.

Wyeth eased 6% to Rs 525 on turning ex-dividend for a dividend of Rs 30 per share on face value of Rs 10 per share. The company has fixed a book closure from 22 August to 31 August 2007 for the payment of dividend.

Gulf Oil Corporation declined 3.10% to Rs 861.10 despite its board approving 5-for-1 stock-split.

Educomp Solutions was down 5.88% to Rs 2350. It acquired a 51% stake in US-based online learning firm AuthorGen Technologies. The investment will enable Educomp to leverage and consolidate its position on online tutoring by having access to key technology competence and student-teacher marketplace models.

Siemens moved up 1.30% to Rs 1200 on bagging an order from Jindal Stainless for a completely new hot strip rolling mill for its Orissa greenfield project. The order includes the plant layout, the mechanical equipment, the drives as well as the entire basic and process automation. Production is scheduled to start in 2009.

Asian markets were in the red today, 17 August 2007, but were off their day’s lows. Japan's Nikkei (down 5.42% at 15,273.65), Hong Kong's Hang Seng (down 1.38% at 20,387.13), Shanghai Composite (down 2.28% to 4,656.67), Singapore's Straits Times (down 0.68% at 3,130.71), Taiwan Weighted (down 1.35% to 8,090.29) and South Korea's Seoul Composite (down 3.19% at 1,638.07) declined

Wall Street pulled off a dramatic late-session turnaround to close mixed yesterday, 16 August 2007, after bargain hunters lured by weeks of massive declines came back to the stock market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 15.69 points, or 0.12%, to 12,845.78. At one point of time it was down more than 340 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 4.57 points, or 0.32%, to 1,411.27, and the Nasdaq Composite index dropped 7.76 points, or 0.32%, to 2,451.07.

Oil prices rebounded half a dollar on Friday, 17 August 2007, lifted by a late Wall Street recovery and news of a fire at a big Gulf Coast refinery. US crude rose 57 cents to $71.57 a barrel.