Market seen opening lower

Local market is expected to open lower tracking lower Asian markets. Crude oil's relentless rise will continue to weigh on sentiment.

Volatility is expected to remain high in the near term as derivatives contracts for June series are set to expire on Thursday, 26 June 2008. As per reports, the marketwide rollover of positions from June 2008 series to July 2008 series stood at 26.50% while that of Nifty was 31%, as on Friday, 20 June 2008.

Meanwhile, as per reports, advance tax collections increased 27% to Rs 20,700 crore over the same period last year, as of 20 June 2008. Advance taxes are paid in four instalments, in June, September, December and March. Usually, the first instalment is 15% of the total tax estimated to be paid for the whole fiscal.

Asian markets were trading lower today, 24 June 2008. China's Shanghai Composite was down 0.03% at 2,760.71, Japan's Nikkei fell 0.05% or 6.43 points at 13,851.04, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.20% or 45.95 points at 22,669.01, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted declined 0.87% or 68.67 points at 7,807.82, Singapore's Straits Times dropped 0.11% or 3.37 points at 2,975.78 and South Korea's Seoul Composite slipped 0.53% or 9.06 points at 1,706.53

US markets lost some ground yesterday, 23 June 2008, sending financial shares to their lowest level in five years, on a deteriorating outlook for bank earnings. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.33 points, or less than 0.01%, to 11,842.36. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 0.07 points, or 0.01%, to 1,318.00, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 20.35 points, or 0.85%, to 2,385.74.

Back home, Indian stocks suffered losses for the fourth straight session yesterday, 23 June 20008, to settle at 10-month low on sustained selling pressure throughout the day due to concerns of further policy tightening by the Reserve Bank of India with inflation reaching 13-year high and political uncertainty.

The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 277.97 points or 1.91% at 14,293.32 and the broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 81.15 points or 1.87% to 4266.40, on that day.

The barometer index has now shaved 5,993.67 points or 29.54% in the calendar year 2008 so far from its close of 20286.99 on 31 December 2008. It is down 6,913.45 points or 32.60% from its all time high of 21206.77 struck on 10 January 2008.

As per provisional data, foreign funds sold shares worth a net Rs 665.56 crore and domestic mutual funds bought shares worth a net Rs 91.75 crore yesterday, 23 June 2008.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 166.24 crore in the futures & options segment yesterday, 21 June 2008. They were net buyers of index futures to the tune of Rs 876.86 crore and sold index options worth Rs 864.33 crore. They were net sellers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 165.96 crore and sold stock options worth Rs 12.81 crore.

Crude for August delivery was up 20 cents at $136.94 a barrel today, 24 June 2008 amid fears of Nigerian supply disruptions and tensions between Israel and Iran. It had hit a record high of $139.89 on 16 June 2008.