Post Market Commentary - March 17 2008

The Indian market after facing the bloodbath closed with heavy losses during the trading session. The market declined as the US Federal Reserve emergency step to cut in its discount rate by 25 basis point ignited the concerns of more global credit crisis that led to the negative sentiments to rule in all major markets all over the world. The dollar fell to as low as 95.76 yen, which is the weakest since Aug. 15, 1995 as growing concern about widening credit- market losses. From the sectoral point, heavy selling was witnessed from the metal, capital goods, bankex and realty baskets. The BSE Sensex declined by 951.03 points to close at 14,809.49 and NSE Nifty fell by 242.7 points to close at 4,503.10. The Sensex has touched an intraday low of 14,738.27. The BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap also followed the benchmark indices to close lower by 459.10 points and 557.27 points at 6,124.35 and 7,522.23 respectively. The market breadth was also weak as 2,404 stocks closed in red while 282 stocks closed in green.

The Metal index declined by 1119.35 points to close at 13,725.52. Major losers are Sesa Goa (12%), Jindal Saw (11.09%), Hindalco Inds (9.20%) and Tata Steel (7.93%).

The Capital Goods index closed lower by 873.63 points at 12,706.31. Losers are Havell India (14.87%), Alstom Projects (14.84%), Praj Inds (12.48%), L&T (7.03%) and Bhel (4.41%).

The Oil and Gas index fell by 552.95 points to close at 9,801.86 as IOCL (8.32%), Aban Offshore (7.86%), RNRL (6.83%) and Essar Oil (5.54%) closed lower.

The Bankex index dropped by 753.93 points to close at 7,569.16 as Yes bank (14.85%), ICICI bank (13.76%), Federal bank (12.29%), BOI (8.20%) and SBI (4.72%) closed in red.

The BSE Realty index slipped by 606.30 points to close at 7,106.53. Scrips that fell are HDIL (13.56%), Sobha Dev (11.97%), Purvankara (10.83%), Akruti city (10.53%) and Ansal Infra (10.22%).

From the IT baskets, Karut Net (9.98%), HCL Tech (9.33%), Aptech (7.03%), Wipro (3.75%) and Infosys (2.44%) closed lower.