Market may head higher in choppy trade

The market may head higher in choppy trade after Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday evening, 4 March 2008 ruled out a ban on FIIs and said that they were not behind the recent fall in stock markets. He aadded that the recent fall could be attributed to sub-prime crisis, expected recession in the US and firming up of oil prices.

Most Asian markets were trading firm today, 5 March 2008. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (up 0.41% at 23,215.56), Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted (up 0.48% at 8,510.81), Singapore's Straits Times (up 0.22% at 2,926.20), South Korea's Seoul Composite (up 0.31% at 1,681.44), advanced. However, Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.21% at 12,964.41.

US markets closed mixed on Tuesday, 4 March 2008 after taking a beating in early trade. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that defaults and foreclosures in the housing market were likely to continue to increase & urged banks to forgive more late loans.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 45.10 points, or 0.37%, to 12,213.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 index declined 4.59 points, or 0.34%, to 1,326.75, while the Nasdaq composite index gained 1.68 points, or 0.07 %, to 2,260.28.

Back home, the key indices drifted lower for a third consecutive session yesterday, 4 March 2008 hit by Budget blues. The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 337.99 points or 2.03% at 16,339.89. The broader CNX S&P Nifty was down 88.75 points or 1.79% at 4864.25 on that day.

As per provisional data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 512.33 crore on Tuesday, 4 March 2008. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers of shares worth Rs 170.23 crore on that day.

FIIs were net buyers of Rs 910.40 crore in the futures & options segment on Tuesday, 4 March 2008. They were net buyers of index futures to the tune of Rs 121.85 crore and bought index options worth Rs 221.14 crore. They were net buyers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 560.66 crore and bought stock options worth Rs 6.75 crore.

Meanwhile, the market will remain closed from 11:45 IST to 12:30 IST due to sun outage. Trading time has been extended till 16:15 IST. The changes in timings will be applicable till 18 March 2008.