Pre Session Commentary - March 30 2009

Today the domestic markets are likely to open negative as the Asian markets have opened with heavy blood bath. Also, the investors will be keeping close eye on the March quarterly results as well as the general elections scheduled in April 2009. The market is likely to give up its previous week gains as there are bearish sentiments across the major global markets. This could result in heavy profit booking across the sectoral indices. The market is likely to witness some selling pressures tracking the weakness in the global markets.

On Friday, the domestic markets traded volatile however later managed to close in green. Since the opening the domestic markets turned volatile as the other Asian markets were also trading mixed. Despite positive closing of the US markets, the Asian markets traded with low zeal. A very cautious trade was witnessed amidst fears of peak level of bench mark indices. After a consecutive rally a range bound trade was rather expected. However on the other hand broader markets outperformed the benchmark indices as BSE Mid cap and Small cap gained 2.09% and 1.59% respectively. Sectors like Metal, HC, Bankex and Auto ended with remarkable gains of 4.85%, 2.81%, 2.61% and 2.22% respectively. However IT and Oil & Gas closed with losses of 0.99% and 0.12% respectively. During the session we expect the markets to be trading negative with bearish trend.

The BSE Sensex closed with marginal gain of 45.39 points at 10,048.49 and NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 26.40 points at 3,108.65. BSE Mid Caps and BSE Small Caps ended with gains of 59.94 points and 50.77 points at 2,934.16 and 3,238.11 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 10,127.09 and intraday low of 9,913.40.

On Friday, the US Markets tumbled to close with losses on account of profit booking at the end of week. Weakness in large-cap tech caused the Nasdaq Composite to under perform its counterparts. 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. Also, the commerce department reported that the Consumer spending reported a marginal rise for the second straight month in February. May crude oil closed 3.6% or $1.96 lower at $52.38 per barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed lower by 148.38 points at 7,776.18, the NASDAQ Composite (RIXF) index declined by 41.80 points to close at 1,545.20 and the S&P 500 (SPX) dropped by 16.92 points to close at 815.94.

Today major stock markets in Asia are trading in red. Hang Seng is trading down by 257.32 points at 13,862.18 followed by Japan''s Nikkei which is lower by 151.91 points at 8,475.06. Further, Strait Times is down by 25.20 points at 1,720.46, Seoul Composite points is low by 14.08 points at 1,223.43 and Taiwan Weighted dropped by 94.88 points at 5,295.82.

Indian ADRs ended mostly lower. In technology sector, Infosys ended down by 7.43% along with Satyam by 1.79%. Further, Wipro lost 5.37% and Patni Computers closed lower by 2.37%. In banking sector ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank lost 1.15% and 4.61% respectively. In telecommunication sector, MTNL advanced by 4.03% while Tata Communication dropped by 1.58%. Sterlite Industries increased by 0.56%.

On BSE, total number of shares traded were 38.93 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 4,347.91 Crore. On NSE, total number of shares traded was 87.97 Crore and total turnover was Rs 12,829.61 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Unitech with 56448756 shares, SAIL with 2152351 shares, Suzlon Energy with 20265456 shares, Tata Steel with 18856245 shares followed by DLF with 16261955 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 1041384 with a total turnover of Rs 15,401.64 Crore. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 509429 with a total turnover of Rs 15,730.05 Crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 1210770 with a total turnover of Rs 18,800.17 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 37151 and notional turnover was Rs 1,239.52 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 3,012 and resistance at 3,123 and BSE Sensex has support at 9,721 and resistance at 10,090.