Market may get earnings boost

The market is likely to extend its gains for the sixth straight session today, 22 April 2008 fuelled by better than expected results from Indian's top company in terms of markjet capitalisation Reliance Industries released yesterday after market hours.

The near-term market will be driven by the quality of earnings rolled out by corporates in the coming days. Important corporate numbers due today, 22 April 2008, are Ranbaxy Laboratories, UltraTechCement and Biocon.

Market may turn volatile in coming days ahead of the expiry of April 2008 derivative series on Thursday, 24 April 2008. As per reports, Nifty rollover from April 2008 series to May 2008 series stood at 34% while marketwide rollover was 15%.

Asian markets were trading lower today, 22 April 2008. Japan's Nikkei (down 1.12% at 13,542.81), Hong Kong's Hang Seng (down 0.99% at 24,476.29), Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted (down 0.67% at 9,022.27), Singapore's Straits Times (down 0.41% at 3,157.98) and South Korea's Seoul Composite (down 0.49% at 1,791.58), edged lower.

US markets ended mixed yesterday, 21 April 2008, as quarterly results from Bank of America fueled worries about bank earnings, while energy and tech stocks gained. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 24.34 points, or 0.19%, to 12,825.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.16 points, or 0.16%, to 1,388.17, while the Nasdaq composite index gained 5.07 points, or 0.21%, to 2,408.04.

Back home, the Indian stock market posted fgains for the fifth straight session yesterday, 21 April 2008, shrugging off a steep 50 basis points hike in cash reserve ratio (CRR) announced by the Reserve Bank of India late on Thursday, 17 April 2008. The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 258.13 points or 1.57% at 16,739.33 and the S&P CNX Nifty advanced 78.60 points or 1.59% at 5,037 on that day.

The BSE Sensex has now gained 1,044.23 points or 6.65% in five straight sessions from 15,695.10 on 10 April 2008

As per provisional data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) yesterday , 21 April 2008 bought shares worth a net Rs 169.66 crore. Domestic funds purchased stocks worth a net Rs 111.58 crore on that day.

FIIs were net buyers of Rs 1,078.11 crore in the futures & options segment on Monday, 21 April 2008. They were net buyers of index futures to the tune of Rs 394.02 crore and bought index options worth Rs 609.09 crore. They were net buyers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 82.74 crore and sold stock options worth Rs 7.74 crore.