Post Session Commentary - Jan 15 2009

The Indian market closed in red terrain after losing all its yesterday’s gains on huge selling observed across the board. Further plunge in inflation failed to lift the market due to the slow down in global equities and intensifying banking crisis in the United States. News that North America''s biggest telephone equipment maker Nortel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and US retails sales have reported worse than expected numbers triggered a sell-off in US markets. Drop in European markets after positive opening, also fueled the market sentiments.

The domestic market today opened significantly lower on the back of weak cues from the global markets. Further, market continued to trade with heavy losses on huge sell off led by the continuous downfalls into the Asian markets that reflected negative sentiment to the Indian market. Stocks extended their losses and ignored the fall in inflation for the week ended January 3 2009, to 5.24% from 5.91% in the previous week. Concerns for the slowing global economy along with decline in corporate earnings also contributed to huge sell off that led the market to close with heavy losses. From the sectoral front, all indices ended in red and Bank and Reality stocks under performed the other sectoral indices as ended with deep cut of more than 5% and 4% respectively. Apart from that, Metal, IT, Teck, Power, Oil & Gas and PSU stocks witnessed most of the selling from these baskets. Midcap and Smallcap stocks also remained weak.

Inflation for week ended 3rd Jan 2008, stood at 5.24% as against 5.91% of the previous week, triggered by cheaper non-administered fuel prices along with goods and food items. WPI for all commodities is down by 0.2% at 229 and primary articles are down 0.5% (WoW).

Among the Sensex pack 29 stocks ended in red territory and 1 in green. The market breadth remained weak as 1649 stocks closed in red while 698 stocks closed in green and 100 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 323.75 points at 9,046.74 and NSE Nifty ended down by 98.60 points at 2,736.70. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps ended with losses of 52.67 points and 75.21 points at 3,010.81 and 3,410.48 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 9,123.78 and intraday low of 8,946.62.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are JP Associates (8.03%), Tata Steel (7.33%), ICICI Bank (7.31%), Reliance Communication Ltd (6.01%), HDFC Bank (5.41%), TCS Ltd (5.28%), Hindalco (4.64%), DLF Ltd (4.46%), SBI (4.42%), Infosys Tech (4.05%), Tata Power (3.80%) and Wipro Ltd (3.55%).

Only one gainer from the BSE Sensex pack is Grasim Indus (0.85%).

The BSE Bank index tumbled (5.69%) or 296.79 points to close at 4,918.88 as Kotak Bank (9.35%), Canara Bank (8.32%), ICICI Bank (7.31%), Sterlite Indus (7.10%), PNB (7.12%), Oriental Bank (6.69%) and HDFC Bank (5.41%) ended in negative territory.

The BSE Reality index closed down by (4.72%) or 87.47 points at 1,766.02. Major losers are Orbit Co (9.53%), Unitech Ltd (9.00%), Housing Dev (6.12%), Ansal Infra (5.85%), Mahindra Life (5.70%) and Indiabull Real (4.50%).

The BSE Metal index ended lower by (4.53%) or 228.87 points at 4,829.02. Main losers are Tata Steel (7.33%), Sterlite Indus (7.10%), Steel Authority (5.23%), Jai Corp Ltd (4.95%), Ispat Indus (4.71%) and Hindalco (4.64%).

The BSE IT index closed with decrease of (4.11%) or 92.72 points at 2,162.70. Scrips that lost are HCL Tech (7.45%), TCS Ltd (5.28%), NIIT Ltd (5.00%), Aptech Ltd (4.61%), Infosys Tech (4.00%) and Financ Tech (3.80%).

The BSE Teck index dropped by (43.77%) or 69.42 points to close at 1,770.20 as Tanla (8.11%), HCL Tech (7.45%), Tata Communications (6.14%), Reliance Communication Ltd (6.01%), Idea Cell (5.93%), TCS Ltd (5.28%) and NIIT Ltd (5.00%) ended in red.

The BSE Power index declined (2.98%) or 52.05 points at 1,694.69. Losers are Siemens Ltd (7.38%), GMR Infra (7.34%), Crompton Greaves (5.62%), Suzlon Energy (4.20%), Reliance Power (4.17%) and Reliance Infra (3.47%).