Pre Session Commentary - Jan 14 2009

Today the markets are likely to open positive. The other major Asian markets have also opened in green and the US markets closed mixed. The markets are likely to bounce back a little today after consecutive negative closing for so many days. In a major bailout the government has announced a package of Rs2,000 crore for Satyam’s revival. This could bring some charm in the market sentiments as well. The over all atmosphere across Asia looks good and therefore in today’s trade we expect the markets to be trading northward with a pinch of volatility.

On Tuesday, the markets traded volatile and closed in red. In the absence of any news, the markets could not move extreme in either direction. The Infosys results could not influence the market sentiments as investors were still carrying skepticism about fundamental growth of the various sectors. Selling pressures were faced by sectors like Oil & Gas, Bankex, Metal and Power that lost 1.78%, 1.17%, 1.15%, and 1.11% respectively. Sensex and Nifty lost by 0.42% and 1.02% respectively. Mid caps and Small caps also felt the burn as they lost 1.43% and 1.51% respectively. During the session we expect the markets to be trading positive with volatility of low intensity.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 38.69 points at 9,071.36 and NSE Nifty ended lower by 28.15 points at 2,744.95. The BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps ended with losses of 43.60 points and 52.90 points at 3,006.41 and 3,442.35 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 9,261.00 and intraday low of 8,992.92.

On Tuesday, the US markets ended mixed. The markets finished with a choppy trade due to mixed results and sense of uncertainty. Financials were able to register strong gains after receiving some relief this session. The sector advanced 1.4% after finishing lower in each of the four prior sessions. Financials are down 12.6% through the last five sessions, though. Fed Chairman Ben Bernake has stated that more finance has to be injected along with necessary into the system to support the economic activity. Crude oil futures for the month of February delivery grew by $0.19 to $37.78 per barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange. The crude futures surged to a high of $40.55 earlier during the intraday as Saudi Arabia, OPEC''s biggest oil producer, said it will cut production by more than the target. Other OPEC members, such as Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, have also notified their clients of cuts in February supplies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed lower by 25.41 points at 8,448.56 NASDAQ index gained 7.67 points at 1,546.46 and the S&P 500 (SPX) also closed higher by 1.53 points to close at 871.79.
Indian ADRs ended mixed. In technology sector, Infosys went up by 5.87% and Wipro gained 6.67%. Further Patni Computers ended with increase of 1.77% while Satyam closed down by 9.59%. In banking sector ICICI gained 1.90% along with HDFC Bank ended down by 2.66%. In telecommunication sector, Tata Communication lost 0.56%, and MTNL tumbled 6.38%. Sterlite Industries increased by 2.42%.

Today the major stock markets in Asia have opened positive. The Shanghai Composite is trading high by 27.06 points at 1,890.42 while Hang Seng is high by 214.56 points at 13,882.61. Further Japan''s Nikkei is trading high by 100.50 points at 8,514.41. South Korea’s Seoul Composite is high by 8.65 points at 1,176.36 and Singapore’s Strait Times is high by 27.47 points at 1,789.29.

The FIIs on Tuesday stood as net sellers in equity and debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs 1763.00 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs 202.30 Crore, while the gross equity sold stood at Rs 2404.50 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs 240.30 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity and debt reported were Rs (641.50) Crore and Rs (38.00) Crore respectively.

On Tuesday, Indian Rupee closed at 49.11/12 per dollar, 0.5% weaker than Friday’s close of 48.84/85. The rupee traded weak due to the weak sentiments in capital markets and the dollar’s recovery against the G7 currencies.

On BSE, total number of shares traded were 30.44 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 3,476.99 Crore. On NSE, total number of shares traded were 65.90 Crore and total turnover was Rs 9,449.92 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Unitech with 49931933 shares, Suzlon Energy with 22902586 shares, Reliance Comm with total volume traded 14781392 shares, DLF with 13809425 shares followed by SAIL with 11707164 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 922322 with a total turnover of Rs 11,833.51 Crore. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 1031105 with a total turnover of Rs 10,291.37 Crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 1046838 with a total turnover of Rs 15,182.13 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 85096 and notional turnover was Rs 1071.31 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 2,701 and resistance at 2,839 and BSE Sensex has support at 8,892 and resistance at 9360.