Post Session Commentary - March 3 2009

The Indian market took a sharp hit in the final trading hour to touch more than three month low as the selling pressures emerged across the sectoral indices. Weakness prevailed in the bourses after exhibiting volatility for throughout of trading session. Heavy selling by the foreign funds from the past few days also weighed on the sentiments. Though market tried to recuperate gradually in afternoon but was not able to sustain the momentum and all over again turned southward.

The domestic market opened on flat note and turned volatile soon after start amid bearish sentiments all over the world. The US markets plunged on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped below the 7000 mark and the S&P 500 index fell to new 12-year lows after insurance major AIG reported a massive quarterly loss. Benchmark indices were instable on continuous bouts of buying and selling led by weak global cues along with short recovery. Further market continued to swing along with futile tryouts to change the direction on recovered US index futures. Finally, market decided to walk in company with bears on intense selling pressure over the ground during final trading hours. Drop in European markets after firm opening along with lower closing of majority of Asian markets also fueled the sentiments. BSE Sensex ended below 8,550 mark and NSE Nifty closed below 2,700 level. From the sectoral front, investors off-loaded position across the sectors. Among those Consumer Durables, FMCG, Teck, Bank, Oil & Gas, IT, Power and Metal stocks witnessed most of the selling from these baskets. BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also remained under pressure during the trading session.

Among the Sensex pack 27 stocks ended in red territory and 3 in green. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained negative as 1595 stocks closed in red while 810 stocks closed in red and 107 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 179.79 points at 8,427.29 and NSE Nifty ended down by 52.20 points at 2,662.40. BSE Mid Caps and BSE Small Caps ended with losses of 43.85 points and 39.72 points at 2,657.13 and 3,009.56 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 8,635.20 and intraday low of 8,390.21.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are Tata Power (6.41%), RCom (4.44%), ITC Ltd (3.75%), TCS Ltd (3.12%), HDFC (2.95%), Bharti Airtel (2.60%), ICICI Bank (2.56%) and Tata Motors (2.54%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are Graism Industries (2.88%), ACC Ltd (1.26%) and JP Associates (0.88%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended in red. Asian stocks extended their losses on financial worries after troubles at financial giants like American International Group and HSBC sent Wall Street to new multiyear lows overnight. Shanghai Composite index, Seng, Nikkei 225 and Straits Times index ended lower by 22.02, 283.53, 50.43 and 4.89 points at 2,071.43, 12,033.88, 7,229.72 and 1,528.51 respectively.

European markets, which opened after the Indian market, are trading lower after higher opening. In London FTSE 100 is trading lower by 33.86 points at 3,691.97 and in Frankfurt the DAX index is trading down by 26.36 points at 3,683.71.

The BSE Consumer Durables index tumbled (3.15%) or 48.64 points to close at 1,496.33 on huge selling pressure. Titna Ind (6.07%), Gitanjali GE (3.27%), Blue Star L (1.89%), Videocon Ind (1.12%) and Rajesh Export (0.43%) ended in red.

The BSE FMCG index ended down by (2.59%) or 51.53 points at 1,941.07. Losers are United Brew (5.55%), ITC Ltd (3.75%), Marico Ltd (3.56%), United Spr (3.16%) and Colgate Palm (3.01%).

The BSE Teck index ended lower by (2.15%) or 36.40 points to close at 1,656.61. Rolta Ind (18.19%), HT Media (9.44%), IBN18 (5.41%), NIIT Ltd (5.07%) and Tanla (4.88%) ended in negative territory.

The BSE Bank index lost (2.10%) or 84.91 points at 3,949.08 on fears of rising defaults in a weakening economy. Main losers are Yes Bank (4.58%), Bank of Baroda (4.32%), Punjab National Bank (4.00%), Bank of India (3.70%) and Kotak Bank (3.60%).

The BSE Oil & Gas index closed with decrease of (1.88%) or 110.44 points at 5,775.57 as crude oil prices declined 10% on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. Scrips that lost are Cairn Ind (3.89%), Essar Oil Ltd (2.80%), Reliance Petroleum (2.40%), ONGC Ltd (2.36%) and Reliance (2.13%).

The BSE IT stocks lost (1.86%) or 38.34 points to close at 2,019.24 on fears that a weak global economy would cut the amount firms spent on technology. Losers are Rolta Ind (18.19%), NIIT Ltd (5.07%), TCS Ltd (3.12%), Infosys Tech (1.74%) and Wipro Ltd (1.16%).

Reliance Communications dropped 4.44%. Reliance Globalcom, the international arm of the company bagged a new three year contract from Remy Cointreau Group to implement a new dedicated telecom network to support the distribution strategy of the firm.

Infosys Technologies fell 1.74% after foreign broker Wachovia Capital Markets slashed rating on the stock to ''under perform'' from ''market perform''.

Cairn India declined 3.89% as crude oil prices declined 10% on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday, 2 March 2009.

HCL Technologies dropped 1.11%. The company signed a multi crore end to end IT services engagement covering the entire IT lifecycle from transformation to integration and operations management with National Insurance Company Ltd (NIC), one of the leading general insurance companies in India for a period of 7 years. The value of the contract is Rs 393 crore.

IVRCL Infrastructures and Projects lost 0.62%. The company has bagged seven projects worth Rs 670.03 crore from different agencies for construction related works.

Gemini Communication Ltd (GCL) gained 8.67%. The company has secured an order from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), for supply, implementation and maintenance of Rural Mobile WIMAX in the telecom circles of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamilnadu and Orissa. The order is worth Rs 67 crore in the first phase. This is BSNL’s first procurement of Mobile WIMAX systems, and takes the first lead in deploying Mobile WIMAX network in large scale in India.