Post Session Commentary - Apr 20 2009

The Indian market lost all its initial strength and ended below the previous closing due to the sustained selling pressure in key stocks during second half of the trading session. Closely observed corporate earnings along with weak European markets took huge strike on the bourses. Investors were clueless regarding the outcome of RBI’s monetary policy review scheduled on Tuesday (21st April).

The market belled the day with slight gains following mixed cues from the markets all over the world. On Friday, the US stock markets closed flat but reported 6th successive week gain. The domestic benchmark indices rallied sharply in succeeding trade on continuous buying momentum. However, market touched the dotted line soon after start and managed to recover again on some buying support from the foreign funds. Further market came off the day’s high and started losing ground during final trading hours on profit taking over the counters. To conclude, stocks closed marginally lower amid volatility on weak US index futures and lower European markets. BSE Sensex fell below 11,000 level and NSE Nifty below 3,400. From sectoral front, Bank, FMCG, Pharma, IT and Oil & Gas stocks contributed to put pressure on the market. However, Metal, Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Reality and Power stocks remained in limelight as witnessed most of the buying from these baskets. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks were also on buyers’ radar.

Among the Sensex pack 19 stocks ended in red territory and 11 in green. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained positive as 1498 stocks closed in green while 1032 stocks closed in red and 85 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 43.59 points at 10,979.50 and NSE Nifty ended down by 7.30 points at 3,377.10. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 56.31 and 59.59 points at 3,528.91 and 4,011.15 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 11,209.66 and intraday low of 10,863.28.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are ICICI Bank (3.38%), NTPC Ltd (3.37%), Hindalco (2.46%), Grasim Indus (2.42%), Tata Power (2.39%), TCS Ltd (2.21%), HDFC (2.16%) and ITC Ltd (1.94%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are Reliance Infra (5.83%), JP Associated (5.02%), HDFC (2.25%), Tata Motors (4.15%), Sterlite Indus (2.81%) and L&T Ltd (2.01%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended mostly higher ahead of key earnings reports from leading U.S. companies. Among the hundreds of U.S. companies due to report are Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM and McDonald''s. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225 and Seoul Composite ended higher by 53.52, 149.64, 17.17 and 7.39 points at 2,557.45, 15,750.91, 8,924.75 and 1,336.39 respectively. However, Straits Times index lost 21.71 at 1,874.85.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading in red. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading lower by 110.43 points at 4,566.41 and in London FTSE 100 is trading down by 42.92 points at 4,049.88.

The BSE Bank index dropped by (0.96%) or 52.88 points at 5,473.45 on concerns of rising defaults in a weakening economy. Scrips that lost are ICICI Bank (3.38%), Punjab National Bank (1.35%), Oriental Bank (1.28%), Canara Bank (1.14%) and Bank of Baroda (0.81%).

The BSE FMCG index lost (0.75%) or 15.66 points to close at 2,071.83. Losers are ITC Ltd (1.94%), United Brew (1.54%) and HUL (0.08%).

The BSE Pharma index dropped by (0.25%) or 7.56 points to close at 3,011.99. Main losers are Cipla Ltd (2.98%), Wockhardt Ltd (2.72%), Dishman Pharma (2.17%), Sun Pharma (1.90%) and Sunpha Adv (1.51%).

The BSE Metal advanced by (2.53%) or 171.53 points at 6,962.29 as steel industry experienced a smart recovery in 4QFY09 on account of a revival of demand from housing, infrastructure and automobile sectors. Gainers are Jindal Steel (8.50%), Gujarat NRE C (6.98%), Jai Corp Ltd (5%), Sesa Goa Ltd (4.96%) and Sterlite Industries (2.81%).

The BSE Capital Goods index also ended higher by (1.79%) or 140.09 points at 7,982.24. ABB Ltd (8.02%), Siemens Ltd (7.10%), Alstom Proje (5.41%), Areva (4.46%) and Kalpat Power T (4.02%) ended in positive territory.

The BSE Consumer Durable stocks advanced by (1.65%) or 30.28 points to close at 1,863.50. Major gainers are Blue Star L (3.56%), Videocon Ind (1.6%), Titan Ind (1.24%) and Rajesh Export (0.97%).

Bajaj Finserv surged 9.24% on reports the company and German insurer Allianz are expected to announce the formation of a joint venture asset management company today, 20 April 2009.

Tata Communications gained 4.37%. TV5MONDE has selected Tata Communications'' LiveBroadcast service to distribute key events in real-time via the Internet. LiveBroadcast, a high-quality, flash-based streaming service, will provide TV5 with the necessary resources and scalability to support their quickly growing audience and support the constant and dynamic flow of content.

Larsen & Toubro advanced by 2.01% as the company expects its order inflow to grow by 25-35% in the year ending March 2010.

Cipla Ltd lost 2.98% to Rs. 222.65 on reports the US Food and Drug Administration has found nine deviations in manufacturing process during a recent inspection of the company''s Bangalore plant.

Punjab National ended lower by 1.35%. The bank in India launched its online trading services in association with Networth Stock Broking to provide state-of-the-art online trading services to its customers on April 13, 2009.

Indian Bank ended down by 0.61%. The advances book of Indian Bank shot up 30 per cent last year to stand at Rs 39,000 crore at the end of March 2008.