Post Session Commentary - June 4 2008

The market faced the bloodbath during the trading session on the concern of rally of inflation above 10% mark due to the hike in fuel prices by the Union government. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday raised the prices of petrol by Rs5 and diesel by Rs3 due to rising crude oil prices. The price of the domestic cooking gas was also hiked by Rs50 a cylinder. The excise duty on petrol was cut Re1 a litre. Kerosene was exempted. The customs duty on crude was also reduced to nil from 5%. Though the market gained some grounds to pare its losses in the mid session but all of a sudden lost the grip due to fear of inflationary pressures as well as negative cues from the global markets. The market showed no sign of recovery till the close due to heavy selling pressures across the sectoral indices. From the sectoral front, the metal, capital goods, oil & gas and realty stocks faced heavy selling across the counters. The market breadth was weak as 1967 stocks closed in red while 676 stocks closed in green.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 447.77 points at 15,514.79 and NSE Nifty fell by 130.3 points to close at 4,585.60. The BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap also fell by 149.33 points and 162.03 points to close 6,397.37 and 7,720.26 respectively.

The Metal index fell by 808.93 points to close 15,423.15. Major losers are Sesa Goa (8.83%), Sterlite Inds (6.71%), Jindal Steel (6.25%), Ispat (5.42%), Tata Steel (5.36%), JSW Steel (5.08%), Jindal Saw (4.50%) and Jindal Stainless (4.24%).

The Capital Goods index dropped by 405.43 points at 12,115.82. Losers are Elecon Eng (5.22%), Bhel (4.99%), Suzlon Energy (4.33%), Havells India (4.16%), Lakshmi Machines (4.03%), L&T (2.93%), BEML (2.76%) and ABB (2.73%).

The Oil and Gas index fell by 352.98 points to close at 10,059.51. Scrips that slipped are BPCL (7.84%), Essar Oil (7.24%), Cairn India (7.12%), RNRL (5.38%), Aban Offshore (4.60%), Reliance Industries (4.14%), Gail India (3.75%), IOCL (3.61%) and HPCL (2.90%).

The Realty index declined by 337.05 points to close 6,389.20 as Akruti City (7.57%), Indbul Real (7.29%), Omaxe (5.61%), Unitech (5.52%), Ansal Infra (4.86%) and Sobha Dev (4.78%) closed in red.

From the IT baskets, Mosear Baer (7.10%), I-Flex (6.40%), Niit Techno (5.97%), Aptech (4.58%), Tech Mahindra (4%), Finance Tech (2.91%), HCL Tech (1.68%), Wipro (1.27%).

The Auto index slipped by 144.46 points at 4,225.59 as Maruti Suzuki (5.07%), Tata Motors (4.87%), Ashok Leyland (4.73%), Escorts (4.66%), Bharat Forge (3.43%), Apollo Tyres (2.52%) and MRF (1.64%) closed in negative.