Post Market Commentary - Apr 1 2008

The Indian market closed on a mixed note on a volatile trading session. Though the market opened on a firm note but unable to sustained at higher levels as the profit booking across the counters prevails. The market gathered the momentum after the mid session on the back of selective buying across the sectoral indices. The volatility gripped the market since the initial bell as some arbitrageurs and jobbers stayed away to protest against the change in securities transaction tax, which came into effect from today. From the sectoral front, the Oil and Gas scrips remained in the limelight as most buying was seen from these baskets.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 17.82 points at 15,626.62 while NSE Nifty closed marginally higher by 5.05 points at 4,739.55. The Sensex has touched an intra day high of 15,834.05 and low of 15,297.96. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps also closed lower by 32.72 points at 6,395.10 while BSE Small Cap closed higher by 20.14 points at 7,861.76.

The market breadth was strong as 1,728 stocks closed in green as against 920 stocks that closed in red.

The Oil and Gas index closed up by 336.90 points at 10,353.72. Major gainers are RPL (6.94%), Essar Oil (6.17%), Reliance industries (3.56%), BPCL (3.38%), Cairn India (1.83%), RNRL (1.65%) and IOCL (1.20%).

From the FMCG space, HUL (4.31%), ITC (2.33%), Marico (2.23%), Glaxosmith Cons (1.57%), Tata Tea (0.79%) and Rei Agro (0.73%) closed in green.

The Capital Goods index declined by 449.09 points to close at 13,559.93. Major losers are Bhel (8.01%), Crompton Greaves (7.72%), Kalpataru Power (4.49%), L&T (4.30%), Thermax (2.60%), Praj Inds (1.73%) and Siemens (1.12%).

The BSE Realty index fell by 88.32 points to close at 7,466.48 as DLF (3.02%), MahindraLife (1.62%), Purvankara (1.58%), Phoenix mill (0.97%), Unitech (0.38%) and HDIL (0.89%).

The Metal index closed lower by 208.80 points at 13,813.76. Losers are Sesa Goa (6.60%), SAIL (5.55%), Tata Steel (3.71%), Jindal Steel (2.89%), Welspun Gujarat (2.54%), Jindal saw (1.41%).

The Bankex index dropped by 74.06 points to close at 7,643.55 as Axis bank (7.69%), Canara bank (3.13%), IOB (3.14%), Yes bank (2.76%), PNB (1.93%), ICICI bank (1.76%) and Federal bank (1.43%) closed in negative.

The IT index closed marginally lower by 7.02 points at 3,540.59 as Educomp Solutions (5.28%), Aptech (3.42%), Wipro (3.83%) and Mphasis (2.55%) closed lower while Patni Comp (5.05%), Karut Net (4.92%), Niit Techno (4.31%) and TCS (2.95%) closed higher.