Post Session Commentary - Apr 27 2009

The Indian market ended today’s volatile session on the flat note as investors took calculative steps ahead of F&O expiry on 29th April 2009. Zigzag movement was led by constant buying and selling witnessed in key stocks. Political uncertainty also contributed to the instability on the domestic bourses as voting is going on for the 15th Lok Sabha election.

The domestic market opened on negative note tracking weak cues from the Asian markets. However, US stock markets on Friday closed higher on the back of some better than expected results from Ford, Microsoft and American Express. Further, benchmark indices suddenly gained some ground and recovered from opening losses to trade above the previous sessions’ closing. During mid session market gathered decent momentum to touch day’s high on significant buying across the board. Despite sharp come back, market was not able to hold the same impetus as slipped again on profit booking ahead of F&O expiry. BSE Sensex ended around 11,370 level and NSE Nifty closed below 3,500 mark. From the sectoral front, Capital Goods, and Pharma stocks were also able to gain market favor. However, Consumer Durable, Reality, Power, PSU, Metal and Teck stocks witnessed most of the selling from these baskets. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also lost strength.

Among the Sensex pack 16 stocks ended in red territory and 14 in green. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained negative as 1341 stocks closed in red while 1158 stocks closed in green and 83 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 42.80 points at 11,371.85 whereas NSE Nifty ended down by 10.75 points at 3,470. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 15.81 and 41.12 points at 3,584.28 and 4,027.14 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 11,492.10 and intraday low of 11,176.55.

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are ICICI Bank (8.20%), Sterlite Industries (4.39%), Wipro Ltd (4.12%), TCS Ltd (3.58%), JP Associates (3.58%), Sun Pharma (2.87%), L&T Ltd (2.48%), BHEL (1.91%) and ITC Ltd (1.55%).

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are Ranbaxy Lab (4.61%), Reliance Infra (3.90%), RCom (3.75%), HUL (3%), ACC Ltd (2.98%), Tata Steel (2.87%), Hindalco (2.37%), Tata Power (2.27%), SBI (1.96%) and Tata Motors (1.45%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended mostly lower on Swine flu fears that hit travel stocks. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Straits Times index and Seoul Composite ended lower by 43.25, 418.43, 34.24 and 14.27 points at 2,405.35, 14,840.42, 1,818.61 and 1,339.83 respectively. However, Nikkei 225 gained 18.35 points at 8,726.34.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading in red as suffering from the outbreak of swine flu. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading lower by 51.10 points at 4,623.22 and in London FTSE 100 is trading down by 27.64 points at 4,128.35

The BSE Bank index ended higher by (2.41%) or 134.89 points at 5,726.59, mainly on expectations that lower interest rates will boost lending growth. ICICI Bank (8.20%), Federal Bank (5.54%), Axis Bank (5.45%), Allahabad Bank (3.46%) and Yes Bank (3.20%) ended in positive territory.

The BSE Capital Goods stocks increased by (1.57%) or 125.08 points to close at 8,071.54. Major gainers are BEML Ltd (6.91%), Havell India (3.15%), Crompton Greaves (2.77%), Gammon Indi (2.65%) and Elecon Eng C (2.54%).

The BSE Consumer Durables ended down by (2.77%) or 50.12 points at 1,762.52. Losers are Videocon Ind (7.32%), Titan Ind (3.26%), Rajesh Export (2.05%) and Gitanjali GE (0.75%).

The BSE Reality index ended lower by (2.42%) or 54.54 points at 2,202.03 on profit booking. Main losers are Indiabull Real (11.08%), Anant Raj (4.95%), Ansal Infra (4.67%), Omaxe Ltd (3.58%) and Unitech Ltd (2.77%).

The BSE Power index dropped by (1%) or 21.55. points at 2,128.29. Scrips that lost are Lanco Infra (4.36%), Reliance Infra (3.90%), GVK Power (3.74%), Reliance Power (3.16%) and Power Grid (3%).

The BSE PSU index lost (0.96%) or 57.46 points to close at 5,919.22. Main losers are Hindustan Copper (4.99%), IDBI Bank (4.82%), REC Ltd (4.61%), Power Finance (3.68%) and Power Grid (3%).

Shares of ICICI Bank ended higher by 8.20%. The bank posted a 35.3% dip in quarterly profit over the weekend hurt by a fall in interest earnings and other income and said it expects moderate loan growth this year. ICICI''s net profit fell to Rs. 744 crore in its fiscal fourth quarter ending in March, from Rs. 1150 crore reported a year ago. The bank’s net profit for the year to March 31, 2009 (FY09) was down 9.6% at Rs 3758.13 crore. Despite a fall in profits, the bank has decided to maintain its dividend payout at Rs 11 per share.

Ranbaxy Laboratories closed down by around 4.61%. The company on Friday reported a huge quarterly net loss on derivative valuations and as a US ban hit sales, and forecast a second straight year of losses. It reported a consolidated loss of Rs. 761 crore in the March quarter, compared with a profit of Rs. 85.8 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Patni Computer Systems closed lower by 2.43%. It has been ranked as the No. 1 ''Gteen Innovative Information Technology Vendor'' by the prestigious 2009 Black Book Top Green Outsourcing Vendors Survey, an annual Industry survey of outsourcing service providers'' pro-environmental initiatives from the perspective of their client experience.

Pantaloon Retail India fell 4.45%. The company reported strong quarterly results for March ended 2009 as posted a net profit of Rs 343.70 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 as compared to Rs 321.00 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

State Bank of India (SBI) lost 1.96%. The bank is looking at the option to cut the lending rates for education loans by 0.25 per cent very soon.