Pre Session Commentary - Sep 25 2008

The Market is expected to have negative opening as US markets closed mostly lower and Asian markets are trading mixed. On Wednesday, the Indian markets broke its two days losing streak and closed in green territory on short covering ahead of September F&O expiry. Crude oil also weighs on the sentiments. Domestic markets opened higher as US-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement moved closer to approval by Congress on Tuesday. US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal with a majority of 19-2. With this approval, first step is cleared and it is to be approved by House of Representatives. Domestic markets continued to gain ground after US investor Warren Buffet announced for an infusion of $5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group. Though, markets pared some of its gains after mid session on inflation worries for the week ended 13th September 2008 but managed to gain further momentum and closed with gains. From the sectoral front, Metal index was best performer as reported a rise of more than 2%. Apart from that, Capital Goods, Oil & Gas and Bank stocks witnessed most of the buying. However, IT and Consumer Durable stocks witnessed most of the selling from these baskets. Mid cap and Small cap stocks also witnessed buying during the trading session. We expect that the market remain volatile during the trading session ahead of future and options expiry and inflation data due to be released today evening.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 122.21 points at 13,692.52 and NSE Nifty ended up by 34.35 points at 4,161.25. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 13.47 points at 5,126.78 and by 8.54 points at 6,101.51. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 13,840.81 and intraday low of 13,592.79.

On Wednesday, the US market closed mostly lower on concern about bailout as congressional hearings of the $ 700 billion bailout plan resumed. Somewhat offset this concern by Warren Buffett''s deal to buy a stake in Goldman Sachs Group. AIG dropped 15% after failed to secure private sector financing and will borrow $85 billion from US Fed. Further, resale of single family homes posted a lesser than expected decline of 2.2%. Crude oil for November delivery fell marginally to settle at $105.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising to high of $109.50.

The NASDAQ index closed up by 2.35 points at 2,155.68 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed lower by 29.00 points at 10,825.17 and the S&P 500 (SPX) dropped by 2.35 points to close at 1,185.87

Indian ADRs ended mixed. In technology sector, Patni Computers closed up by (6.00%) followed by Wipro by (1.32%), while Infosys closed down by (4.26%) and Satyam by (0.68%). In banking sector HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank gained (6.73%) and (3.23%). In telecommunication sector, Tata Communication and MTNL lost (2.92%) and (2.08%). However, Sterlite Industries increased by (3.55%).

Today the major stock markets in Asia are trading mixed. Hang Seng index is trading up by 144.66 points at 19,106.65. However, Japan''s Nikkei dropped by 103.72 points at 2,011.31, Singapore''s Straits slipped 22.36 points at 2,455.24 and Taiwan Weighted trading at 6,121.53 plunged 11.07 points.

The FIIs on Wednesday stood as net seller in equity and net buyer in debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs1,895.80 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs216.80 Crore while the gross equity sold stood at Rs2,763.50 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs151.90 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity reported was (Rs867.70) Crore and net debt was Rs64.90 Crore.

The BSE and NSE trading will remain suspend between 11.25 IST and 12.10 IST due to the sun outage. The day’s session ended at 16.15 IST. The new trading timing is effective till 8 October 2008.

On Wednesday, the partially convertible rupee ended at 45.95/96 per dollar, 0.5% weaker than 45.72/73 at close on Tuesday. It fell to 46.11 during the day. Indian rupee as banks bought the U.S. unit locally to sell at higher rates offshore, but suspected central bank intervention helped recover some of the losses.

On BSE, total number of shares traded was 21.09 crores and total turnover stood at Rs4319.28 crores. On NSE, total volume of shares traded was 43.16 crores and total turnover was Rs 11829.24 crores.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Idea Cellular with total volume traded 16568493, followed by NTPC with 9249684, Satyam Computer with 9078932, ICICI Bank with 9030078 and Sterlite Ind with 8806616.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 1032365 with a total turnover for the same was Rs 20503.36 crores. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures was 1353511 with a total turnover of Rs 21836.95 crores. Total number of contract for index options was 1117041 and total turnover was Rs 23763.36 crores and total number of contracts for stock options was 55000 and notional turnover was Rs 948.04 crores.

Today, Nifty has support at 4,087 and resistance at 4,247 and BSE Sensex has support at 13,416 and resistance at 14,004.