Market Close: Recovered but ends lower

Dramatic turnaround in the market after a steep fall as its Asian peers fell too. It was a red carpet welcome for the market at the start as engineering majors LNT and BHEL witnessed selling pressure. LNT slipped after some report says that its subsidiaries in Middle-east incurred commodity hedging losses. Sensex slipped over 600 points within the opening hours. Market swung over 1000 points before closing down marginally. Dollar appreciated against the Rupee to trade at Rs 40.70 which is good for Techies but all went for profit booking. Bajaj Auto was replaced by JP Associates in Nifty 50 but both rallied. During the final hours market recovered over 500 points due to value buying at lower levels. Recovery was led by PSU bank, metal, oil stocks. Energy stocks traded up crude trading near $105 per barrel. Asian markets ended in mixed while European in the same direction.

Sensex ended down 51 points. Top gainers were Bharti, ACC, Cipla, Tata Steel, Reliance Petro, Sterlite Ind, JP Associate, M&M, Cairn India and HCL Tech while L&T, BHEL, Maruti, Satyam and Wipro ends lower in negative

Ceat was one of the lime light for the day after Ceat reported that it has signed a deal to sell a part of its land measuring 7 acre in the Mumbai suburb of Bhandup for Rs 130 crore. An agreement has been signed with Ashford InfoTech for development of the land. Ceat intends to use the proceeds for expansion plans which include setting up two facilities in the country. The company will invest Rs 800 crore in the Greenfield projects. Stock ended up by 12.5% following to this news.

Auto stocks traded weak. TVS Motor has launched a new three-wheeler and is confident of seeing the vehicle adding Rs 400 to the company's revenue streams within the next 18 months. The company will initially sell the three-wheeler, popularly known as auto rickshaws, in south India and will make it available across the country by December 2008. India's No 2 motorcycle maker, Bajaj Auto is currently the leading three-wheeler maker. The company has created a dedicated facility, with an installed capacity of one lakh units per year at its Hosur factory, investing Rs 120 crore. TVSM would be leveraging its existing distribution and service network in the country, besides it would also export three-wheelers to more than 20 countries. TVS King would offer about 30 km per litre of petrol due to its new 200-cc, low friction 7-port engine. After this launch Bajaj could see some pressure on the sales number but comparatively bajaj has lower priced below the TVS king prices. TVS ended marginally up by 2%.

Technically Specking: Sensex has nearly made a double bottom when compared to the low made on 22nd January 08. We are not in a clear situation to call the end of the fall. But some respite might come here with small upsides in a few index and broader index stocks. Sensex made an intra day high of 15998 and low of 15362. The breadth was in favor of Declines, as there were 1916 Declines against 751 Advances. Market turnover was at Rs 6856 Cr. Support for tomorrow lie at 15700 and 15430 levels and resistance at 16000 and 16250.