Post Session Commentary - Sep 18 2008

Indian markets bounced back after the mid sessions to recover smartly from the dip fall on the back of Finance Minister’s strong statement about India’s financial health led to sustained buying across the sectors. Also the bounce back in Asian markets from days low on relaxation in policies in China for second time this week and along with further pump of $28 billion money into the markets by Japan, Australia and India, also added to positive sentiment. Indian markets today opened on extremely negative note on the back of financial crises across the globe. US red ink led bloody session on market. Further, markets continued to crash as heavyweights took huge beating of the bourses. Finally, markets started recovering in last hours of trading to close with gains. BSE Sensex ended above 13,300 level and NSE Nifty closed above 4,000 mark. From the sectoral front, Oil & Gas, Bank, Capital Goods, and Auto stocks were in limelight as witnessed most of the buying from these baskets. However, Reality, Consumer Durables, Metal and IT stocks remained out of favor as witnessed selling pressure. Mid cap and Small cap stocks also suffered due to negative sentiment as ended with cut of more than 1% and 2% respectively. The market breadth was negative as 1977 stocks closed in red while 676 stocks closed in green and 70 stocks remained unchanged.

According to the Finance minister of India, Indian operations of US based AIG and commercial banks in the country are in sound health. There is no need to worry as AIG''s life and non-life insurance businesses in India are in 26:74 ratio with the Tata.

To protect the depreciating currencies, Asian authorities are discharging money into the markets. Along with that China relaxed its policies for second time this week and Japan, Australia and India pumped a further $28 billion into money markets. Bank of Japan injected an additional $14.35 billion into the short-term money market to provide liquidity. Australian Central Bank added A$23.92 billion, bringing its injection this week to A$11.2 billion. In India, the central bank supplied $1.35 billion to banks. China central bank allowed yields on its three-month bills to drop 4 basis points to at an auction after keeping the rate steady for six month.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 52.70 points at 13,305.60 and NSE Nifty ended up by 29.90 points at 4,035.70. However, the BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 60.50 points at 5,079.13 and by 139.32 points at 6,075.43. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 13,346.79 and intraday low of 12,558.14.

Gainers from the BSE are Sterlite In (3.46%), HDFC Bank Ltd (3.17%), Reliance (3.16%), NTPC Ltd (3.05%), ICICI Bank Ltd (2.78%), Maruti Suzuki (2.70%), M&M Ltd (2.46%), Reliance Infra (2.43%), TCS Ltd (2.77%), SBI (2.14%) and ONGC (2.02%).

The BSE Oil & Gas index ended up by 206.65 points at 8,972.89 as BPCL (3.24%), Reliance (3.16%), Aban Offshore (3.03%), ONGC Ltd (2.02%), Essar Oil Ltd (1.99%) and HPCL (1.99%) ended in positive territory.

The BSE Bank index closed higher by 176.67 points at 6,769.63. Gainers are IOC (7.49%), Bank of Baroda (5.80%), Kotak Bank (4.72%), PNB (4.38%), OBC (3.18%) and HDFC Bank Ltd (3.17%).

The BSE Capital Goods index gained 105.59 points to close at 11,248.50 Major gainers are Suzlon Energy (6.54%), Siemens Ltd (2.64%), Punj Lloyd (2.59%), Aiaengineer (1.98%), ABB Ltd (1.63%) and L&T Ltd (1.48%).

The BSE Reality index plunged 178.82 points to close at 3,813.11. As Anant Raj (9.26%), Indiabull Real (8.81%), Mahindra Life (8.47%), Penland Ltd (6.82%), Unitech Ltd (4.46%) and Sobha Dev (3.57%) closed in negative territory.

The BSE Consumer Durables index dropped by 133.11 points to close at 3,161.87. As Blue Star L (6.91%), Rajesh Export (6.26%), Videocon Ind (3.89%) and Titan Ind (3.60%) closed in negative territory.

The BSE Metal index lost 124.88 points to close at 9,690.05. Major losers are Gujarat NRE C (8.27%), Sesa Goa Ltd (7.66%), NMDC Ltd (7.09%), JSW SL (6.58%), Wespan Gujarat Sr (6.24%) and NALCO (4.98%).