Pre Session Commentary - Nov 24 2008

Today markets are likely to open negative as on the week end markets had gained enough. The other Asian markets have also opened with a blood bath. However, one may witness some extremely volatility in the markets. On the global front APEC leaders have on Sunday chalked out plans to prevent the economic downturn. The markets today would be little choppy and volatile.

On Friday, domestic markets opened with phenomenal gains and continued the trend through out the session. The European markets traded positive and the other Asian markets also helped keep the positive sentiments. Despite the profit booking in the mid session, the bulls helped the markets bounce back with short coverings. Sensex and Nifty gained by phenomenal 5.49% and 5.50% respectively. Power, Oil & Gas and CG gained phenomenal by 6.21%, 5.69%, and 5.59% respectively. During the trading session we expect the market to be trading volatile.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 464.20 points at 8,915.21 and NSE Nifty ended higher by 140.30 points at 2693.45. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 20.87 points at 2,916.66 and by 5.42 points at 3,390.76. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 8,988.03 and intraday low of 8,442.31.

On Friday, US markets closed with phenomenal gains. The heavy losses on the early of the week had prompted the bargain hunters to bid for stocks higher. Despite such gains on the last trading day of the week, the week finished with a loss of 8.4%.There are also speculations surrounding the Citi Group. The energy stocks moved up on the back of surge in the Crude oil prices. Crude oil futures for the January delivery rose by $1.41 or 2.8% to $51.34 a barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange. The oil surged on the back of speculations that OPEC would further cut the production to support the price.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed higher by 494.13 points at 8,046.42 NASDAQ index gained 68.23 points at 1,384.35 and the S&P 500 (SPX) also closed higher by 47.59 points to close at 800.03 points.

Indian ADRs ended positive. In technology sector, Infosys gained by 8.76% and Wipro ended high by 13.29% followed by Satyam that ended high by 6.98% and Patni Computers closing high by 6.53%. In banking sector ICICI Bank was high by 15.53%, while HDFC Bank gained 6.72%. In telecommunication sector, Tata Communication declined by (1.22%), while MTNL inclined by 6.79%. Sterlite Industries was high by 10.53%.

Today the major stock markets in Asia opened mixed. The Shanghai Composite is trading low by 31.69 at 1,937.69 Hang Seng is low by 171.84 points at 12,487.36. Further Japan''s Nikkei is high by 207.75 points at 7,910.79. Straits Times is also trading low by 30.01 points at 1,632.09 and South Korea’s Seoul Composite is low by 29.45 points at 974.28.

The FIIs on Friday stood as net sellers in equity and net buyers in debt. The Gross equity purchased stood at Rs 998.40 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs 463.50 Crore, while the gross equity sold stood at Rs 1,654.50 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs 245.40 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity and debt reported were (Rs 656.10) Crore and Rs 218.10 Crore respectively.

On Friday, the partially convertible rupee ended at 50.04 per dollar, stronger by 0.3% on Thursday’s closing at 50.18. The gains on the last day of the week of stock markets helped. The large domestic funds also bought heavily on the late trading day. On the other hand foreign funds have sold a net $13.5 billon of Indian stocks.

On BSE, total number of shares traded was 27.58 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 3,580.22 Crore. On NSE, total volume of shares traded was 59.48 Crore and total turnover was Rs 9,484.66 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Unitech with 46884893 shares, Suzlon Energy with total volume traded 35436275 shares, followed by ICICI Bank with 18205400 shares, DLF with 17666655 shares and Reliance Petro with 13155836 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 1360434 with a total turnover of Rs 16760.22 crores. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 1242934 with a total turnover of Rs 11836.74 Crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 1353209 with a total turnover of Rs 18519.66 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 53296 and notional turnover was Rs 579.53 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 2,585 and resistance at 2,720 and BSE Sensex has support at 8,740 and resistance at 9,100.