Profit taking may cap gains

The market may extend gains on the back of mostly higher Asian stocks and on preliminary data on advance tax payment of India Inc showing pockets of strength in a slowing economy. However, profit taking after a near 10% surge in the BSE Sensex in the past three trading sessions may cap gains. The upside on the domestic bourses will be capped in the next two months due to political uncertainty ahead of parliamentary election to be held mid-April 2009 to mid-May 2009.

Corporate earnings indications from the fourth quarter advance tax payout seems to be a mixed bag. Banking and insurance firms have paid higher taxes in the fourth installment. But India's biggest private sector firm and oil refiner Reliance Industries (RIL), India's biggest software exporter TCS and India's biggest dedicated housing finance firm in terms of revenue HDFC have paid lower advance tax.

Advance tax payment gives indication on the outlook on earnings. Thus if a company pays higher advance tax, it could indicate a good financial performance for the quarter and vice versa. India's biggest engineering & construction firm by revenue L&T has paid 61.76% higher advance tax in the fourth installment even as metal producer Hindalco has paid 53.3% lower advance tax.

Asian shares were mostly higher Tuesday despite a slight pullback on Wall Street, with financials rallying for another day in many markets amid hopes governments would take further action to deal with the toxic debt still plaguing the sector.

Trading in US index futures indicated the Dow could slide 12 points at the opening bell on Tuesday, 17 March 2009. Alcoa tumbled 11.6% in after hours trading after the largest US aluminum producer cut its dividend 82% and launched initiatives to reduce costs by more than $2.4 billion annually by 2010. With high aluminum inventories and low pricing, Alcoa has scrambled to cut capacity and find buyers for some of its downstream businesses.

April Nymex crude oil futures were lower on profit-taking in Asia triggered by a 2.4% overnight rise in New York. Crude was down 34 cents at $47.01 a barrel on Globex