Pre Session Commentary - May 20 2008

The Indian Market is likely to have a negative opening as the US market close mixed following a pullback in technology sector and the Asian market are trading on the back foot as crude oil surged to a new record of $127 per barrel. On Friday, the Indian market closed in green. It opened with handsome gain due to the strong positive cues from the global market but was unable to sustain the gain. It turned volatile due to inflation worries. But at last the market managed to regain its momentum to close in the positive territory. From the sectoral front, the metal and bankex stocks were in limelight because most of the buying was seen from these baskets. The BSE Sensex closed higher by 81.40 points at 17,434.94 and NSE Nifty closed up by 42.45 points at 5,157.70. We expect that the market may remain choppy during the trading session.

On Monday, the US market ended mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed higher by 41.36 points at 13,028.16 along with S&P 500 went up by 1.28 points to close at 1,426.63 and NASDAQ closed down by 12.76 points to close at 2,516.09.

Indian ADRs closed mixed. In technology sector, Wipro advanced by (1.13%) while Infosys went down by (1.09%) along with Patni Computers by (0.52%), and Satyam also went up by (0.27%). In banking sector, HDFC bank went up by (1.12%) and ICICI bank by (0.27%). In telecommunication sector, Tata Communication and MTNL ended higher by (0.59%) and (1.42%). Sterlite Ind went up by (2.80%).

Today the major stock markets in Asia are trading lower. Hang Seng index trading lower by 404.60 points at 25,337.63 along with Japan’s Nikkei is trading down by 45.49 points at 14,224.12 and Taiwan Weighted trading at 9,238.98 down by 56.22 points.

The FIIs on Friday stood as net buyer in equity. The gross equity purchased was Rs3135.40 Crore and the gross debt purchased was Rs0.00 Crore while the gross equity sold stood at Rs2,405.50 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs0.00 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity reported was Rs729.900 Crore and net debt was Rs 0.00.

Today, Nifty has support at 5,057 and resistance at 5,228 and BSE Sensex has support at 17,115 and resistance at 17,745.