Pre Session Commentary - Sep 8 2008

The Indian Market is expected to have positive opening due to the supportive global cues as US markets ended mixed and Asian markets are trading higher along with strong domestic trigger as India succeed to get waiver from NSG. On Friday, domestic markets extended its losses to close with sharp gap on weak global cues along with concern over outcome of NSG meet in Vienna for Indo-US nuclear deal. Weekly jobless claims for US climbed 15,000 to 444,000. Market opened on downbeat note on adverse global signal. Further, market continued to remain under pressure nevertheless fight to find support. Fresh bouts of huge selling again crushed markets to end with sharp losses. NSE Nifty ended below 4,300 mark and BSE Sensex closed below 14,500 level. From the sectoral front, Reality index was worst performer as ended with gap of more than 4%. Other than that, Metal, Bank, Capital Goods, Oil & Gas and IT stocks also contributed to the day’s slide. However, FMCG stocks ended with marginal gain. The BSE Sensex closed lower by 415.27 points at 14,483.83 and NSE Nifty ended down by 95.45 points at 4,352.30. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps ended with losses of 75.45 points and 69.15 points at 5,753.72 and 6,905.22. We expect that market may remain bullish during the trading session.

NSG granted waiver for India on Saturday. It is an important breakthrough for India as opened door for nuclear trade. NSG has lifted hurdles for in India in the way of buying products and technologies for the civil uses of nuclear technology and nuclear power.

On Friday, the US market closed mixed. Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell $1.66 to settle at $106.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which is its lowest settlement since early April.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed higher by 32.73 points to close at 11,220.96 followed by the S&P 500 (SPX) ended up by 5.48 points to close at 1,242.31 while the NASDAQ index lost 3.16 points to close at 2,255.88.

Indian ADRs ended mixed. In technology sector, Wipro ended lower by (1.83%) followed by Patni Computers plunged by (1.15%), Satyam by (0.68%) and Infosys lost (0.33%). In banking sector ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank gained (3.49%) and (0.09%). In telecommunication sector, MTNL ended and Tata Communication dropped by (1.56%) and (1.05%). Sterlite industries increased by (1.25%).

Today the major stock markets in Asia are trading higher. Hang Seng index is trading strong by 795.86 points at 20,729.84 along with Japan’s Nikkei trading up by 438.04 points at 12,650.27, Taiwan Weighted advanced by 333.24 points at 6,640.52 and Singapore''s Straits Times gained 91.87 points at 2,666.08.

The FIIs on Friday stood as net seller in equity and net buyer in debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs2,617.20 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs62.60 Crore while the gross equity sold stood at Rs3,016.40 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs49.60 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity reported was (Rs399.10) Crore and net debt was Rs13.00 Crore.

The partially convertible Indian rupee fell to its weakest since December 2006, to close at 44.64/65 per dollar against previous close of 44.35/36. Weakness in Indian rupee was on account of dollar demand from corporate and share market losses.

Today, Nifty has support at 4,310 and resistance at 4,621 and BSE Sensex has support at 14,303 and resistance at 15,613.