Pre Session Commentary - Aug 27 2008

The Indian Market is expected to have positive opening due to mixed cues from the global markets. On Tuesday, domestic market recovered smartly during final trading hours to close with marginal gains after giving up its initial losses. Market opened lower tracking weak cues from global markets. Further market continues to trade in negative territory but on the back some buying it tried to recover. Further market was not able to sustain the momentum and turned choppy. Domestic market finally managed to close marginal in green on sustained buying during last hours of trading session. The BSE Sensex ended marginal below 14, 500 level and NSE Nifty ended above 4,300 mark. From the sectoral front, interest rate sensitive Bank and Auto stocks outperformed the benchmark index and closed with gain of more than 1%. Along with that, buying was continued in IT, Capital Goods and Pharma stocks. However, Oil & Gas, Metal and Reality stocks remained out of favor as most of the selling was witnessed from these baskets. The BSE Sensex closed higher by 31.87 points at 14,482.22 and NSE Nifty ended marginally up by 2.15 points at 4,337.50. The BSE Mid Caps closed with gains of 3.56 points at 5,744.77 while Small Caps ended down by 9.63 points at 6,912.62. We expect that market may remain volatile during the trading session.

On Tuesday, the US market was closed mixed. Crude oil ended up $1.16 to $116.94 a barrel supported by fears Hurricane Gustav, which would rip through crude and natural gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed higher by 26.62 points to close at 11,412.87 along with The S&P 500 (SPX) ended up by 4.67 points to close at 1,271.51 while the NASDAQ index lost 3.62 points to close at 2,361.97.

Indian ADRs ended on positive note. In technology sector, Patni Computers ended higher by (2.54%) followed by Wipro surged by (1.68%), Infosys by (1.58%) and Satyam by (0.89%). In banking sector HDFC bank and ICICI Bank gained (3.67%) and (2.68%). In telecommunication sector, Tata Communication ended up by (1.68%) while MTNL dropped by (0.62%). Sterlite industries increased by (1.87%).

Today the major stock markets in Asia are trading mixed. Hang Seng index is trading higher by 100.83 points at 21,157.49 along with Taiwan’s Taiex index trading up by 90.17 points at 7,054.77. However, Japan’s Nikkei trading lower by 14.70 points at 12,764.01 and Singapore''s Straits Times lost 0.42 points at 2,706.77.

The FIIs on Tuesday stood as net buyer in equity and in debt. The gross equity purchased was Rs1,303.70 Crore and the gross debt purchased was Rs2.20 Crore while the gross equity sold stood at Rs1,209.80 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs0.00 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity reported was Rs93.90 Crore and net debt was Rs2.20 Crore.

Indian Rupee ended 0.10% lower at 43.85/86 from Monday’s close of 43.78/79 against the dollar. The rupee touched 44.15 against the dollar, the lowest level since March 16, 2007, before erasing almost all of the day''s losses.

Today, Nifty has support at 4,265 and resistance at 4,406 and BSE Sensex has support at 14,156 and resistance at 14,780.