Post Session Commentary - March 30 2009

Indian market today dived deeply into red to close with huge losses along with other Asian counterparts. Profit booking together with political worries ahead of parliamentary elections weighed on sentiments. Besides, weak European markets also fueled to the negative attitude. BSE Sensex tanked around 5% to close below 9,600 level and NSE Nifty lost more than 4% to end lower than 3,000 mark.

The market opened sharply below its last closing figure mirroring unfavorable cues from global markets. The US stock markets ended lower on Friday on account of profit booking at the end of week. US Stocks retreated as the heads of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America said results worsened in March and lower oil and metal prices pulled down commodity producers. Further, domestic bourses continued to southbound on huge selling pressure over the ground. Profit taking mainly led by weak US index futures contributed to hit the investors’ sentiments. During last trading hours, market lost further ground to widen its losses led by all round selling. Last week market gained solid ground tracking positive cues from the markets all over the world. From the sectoral front, Bank, Metal, Reality, IT, Teck, Capital Goods and Power stocks observed most of the selling from these baskets. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also stayed out of favor. However, Consumer Durables and Pharma stocks remained in limelight as contributed most of the buying.

Among the Sensex pack 28 stocks ended in red territory and 2 in green. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained weak as 1471 stocks closed in red while 904 stocks closed in green and 98 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 480.35 points at 9,568.14 and NSE Nifty ended down by 130.50 points at 2,978.15. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 43.57 and 38.06 points at 2,890.59 and 3,200.05 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 9,902.35 and intraday low of 9,520.96.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are JP Associates (12.34%), ICICI Bank (12.27%), Tata Steel (12.24%), Reliance Infra (11.43%), DLF Ltd (9.34%), SBI (9.18%), TCS Ltd (9.12%), Hindalco (8.81%), Tata Motors (8.74%), HDFC (8.72%), RCom (8.70%), Sterlite Industries (6.18%), HDFC Bank (5.18%) and BHEL (4.98%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are NTPC Ltd (0.80%) and Sun Pharma (0.25%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended in deep red tracking Wall Street losses overnight. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, Straits Times index and Seoul Composite lost 16.40, 663.17, 390.89, 72.52 and 40.05 points at 2,358.04, 13,456.33, 8,236.08, 1,673.14 and 1,197.46 respectively.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading lower. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading down by 146.16 points at 4,057.39 and in London FTSE 100 is trading lower by 94.63 points at 3,804.22.

The BSE Bank stocks under performed the benchmark indices as dropped by (8.58%) or 414.56 points to close at 4,414.47 on profit booking after a recent surge. Major losers are ICICI Bank (12.27%), Kotak Bank (11.02%), Punjab National Bank (9.97%), Yes Bank (9.59%) and SBI (9.18%).

The BSE Metal index closed with decrease of (7.41%) or 452.41 points at 5,657.68. Scrips that lost are Tata Steel (12.24%), Welspan Gujarat SR (10.35%), Steel Authority (9.24%), Hindalco (8.81%) and Jindal Saw (8.47%).

The BSE Reality ended down by (7.24%) or 118.32 points at 1,516.42. Losers are Housing Development (9.57%), DLF Ltd (9.34%), Indiabull Real (6.95%), Ansal Infra (6.60%) and Unitech Ltd (6.13%).

The BSE IT index lost (4.43%) or 103.54 points to close at 2,234.26 on fear of slashing down of prospective orders for India. Losers are TCS Ltd (9.12%), Rolta India (5.94%), NIIT Ltd (5.90%), Wipro Ltd (4.74%) and Tech Mahindra (4.67%).

The BSE Teck index ended lower by (3.94%) or 74.04 points to close at 1,804.87. Main losers are TCS Ltd (9.12%), RCom (8.70%), UTV Software (6.04%), Rolta India (5.94%) and NIIT Ltd (5.90%).

The BSE Capital Goods index also ended lower by (3.81%) or 247.87 points at 6,260.80 on worries that a slumping economy might restrict prospective orders. Suzlon Energy (9.12%), Havells India (7.59%), Reliance Industrial Infra (7.09%), Punj Lloyd (5.53%) and Gammon Indi (5.36%) ended in negative territory.

Cairn India fell 6.79% to Rs. 181.90 as crude oil prices dropped. Fall in crude oil prices would result in lower realizations from crude sales for the oil exploration firm.

Larsen & Toubro shed by 4.27% to despite the company won an order worth Rs. 345 crore to manufacture steam generators for Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

Unichem Laboratories lost 2.33% to Rs. 160.80 despite it received approval from US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for Topiramate tablets in the strengths of 25 mg, 50 mg and 100 mg.

Asian Paints Ltd increased by 2.38%. The company has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on March 28, 2009, has approved a Scheme of Amalgamation (the Scheme) of Technical Instruments Manufacturers (India) Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company) with the Company under the provisions of Company Act, 1956.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries gained 0.25% as it announced that USFDA has granted an approval for its abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) to market generic Topamax, topiramate tablets.

Financial Technologies ended up by 3.05%. The company is in talks with the London Stock Exchange to sell a minority stake in its forthcoming stock exchange.