Post Session Commentary - Apr 28 2009

Markets closed on a lackluster note after trading in deep red terrain tracking unfavorable cues from the markets all over the world. Global stocks were anguishing with blood bath on worries that the swine-flu outbreak will curtail travel. Market tumbled also on investors’ cautious behavior ahead of F&O expiry on 29th April 2009. The expiry of the near-month derivatives contracts has been advanced to 29th April 2009 from 30th April 2009 as the stock market will remain close on 30th April 2009 due to voting for the parliamentary elections on 30th April 2009, in Mumbai.

The market opened today on negative note backed by weak cues across the global markets. The US stock markets on Monday closed lower on worries that the Swine-Flu outbreak would further deepen the global recession. Further, benchmark indices continued to extend their losses on profit taking ahead of the settlement of F&O expiry on Wednesday and two continuous holidays in this week. Depressing European markets also fueled to the negative sentiments in the domestic bourses. During final trading hours, market dropped severely to close with huge losses of more than 3% on strong selling over the ground. BSE Sensex ended around 11,000 level and NSE Nifty closed below 3,400 level. From the sectoral front, investors off-loaded positions across the sectors. Among those, most of the selling was observed in Reality, Metal, Bank, Capital Goods, Power, PSU and Oil & Gas stocks. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also remained out of favor during the trading session.

Among the Sensex pack all 30 stocks ended in red territory. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained extremely weak as 1807 stocks closed in red while 654 stocks closed in green and 81 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 370.10 points at 11,001.75 and NSE Nifty ended down by 107.65 points at 3,362.35. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 133.57 and 138.82 points at 3,450.71 and 3,888.32 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 11,375.97 and intraday low of 10,961.75.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are DLF Ltd (7.81%), Sterlite Industries (7.73%), Tata Steel (7.56%), HDFC (7.36%), RCom (7.16%), Reliance Infra (6.82%), Tata Motors (6.41%), ICICI Bank (6.11%), BHEL (4.12%), Hindalco (4.04%), HDFC Bank (4.01%), L&T Ltd (3.91), SBI (3.29%) and ITC Ltd (2.98%).

There is no gainer from the BSE Sensex pack today.

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended lower on swine flu fears along with worries for US Banks. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, Straits Times index and Seoul Composite ended lower by 3.91, 285.31, 232.57, 10.20 and 39.59 points at 2,401.44, 14,555.11, 8,493.77, 1,808.41 and 1,300.24 respectively.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading in red. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading down by 119.24 points at 4,574.83 and in London FTSE 100 is trading lower by 78.90 points at 4,088.11.

The BSE Reality index under performed the benchmark indices and ended down by (5.7%) or 125.56 points at 2,076.47 on profit taking. Losers are Housing Dev (9.32%), DLF Ltd (7.81%), Indiabull Real (6.06%), Orbit Co (5.84%) and Parsvnath (5.26%).

The BSE Metal index closed with decrease of (5.66%) or 401.58 points at 6,695.56 on profit booking as copper prices contracted on the commodities markets concern that the Swine flu outbreak will disrupt the economic activity to larger extent. Scrips that lost are Welspan Gujarat (9.87%), Sterlite Industries (7.73%), Sesa Goa Ltd (7.57%), Tata Steel (7.56%) and JSW Steel (5.90%).

The BSE Bank stocks tumbled (4.97%) or 284.84 points to close at 5,441.75 on weak sentiment towards the bank stocks globally led by worries that US banks may have to raise more capital. Major losers are Punjab National Bank (9.64%), Kotak Bank (7.55%), Bank of India (6.77%), Yes Bank (6.59%) and ICICI Bank (6.11%).

The BSE Capital Goods index dropped by (4.17%) or 336.33 points to close at 7,735.21. Main losers are Reliance Industrial Infra (9.86%), Walchand In (9.26%), BEML Ltd (8.72%), Gammon Indi (7.99%) and Praj Industries (7.77%).

The BSE Power index lost (3.78%) or 80.4 points to close at 2,047.89. Losers are Neyveli LIG (7.92%), Lanco Infra (7.49%), Reliance Infra (6.82%), Suzlon Energy (6.53%) and Torrent Power (6.21%).

The BSE PSU index ended lower by (2.85%) or 168.50 points to close at 5,750.72. Indian Bank (140.97%), Punjab National Bank (9.64%), BEML Ltd (8.72%), Neyveli LIG (7.92%) and Vijaya Bank (7.09%) ended in negative territory.

Cadila Health Care ended lower by 0.51%. The Company has posted a net profit of Rs 425.70 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 where as the same was at Rs 354.00 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

Biocon lost 1.90%. The company has posted a net profit of Rs24.88 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 as compared to Rs65.3crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. The net profit was impacted by its marked-to-market losses, declining to Rs 93 crore. MTM losses stood at Rs 147 crore. Consolidated revenue (including Axicorp) increased 53% to Rs 1673 crore in the March quarter from Rs. 1090 crore a year ago.

Tech Mahindra dropped 3.09%. The company, who emerged as the highest bidder for the acquisition of fraud hit Satyam computers, will enhance the corporate governance standard of Satyam. For this, it is looking at the option to appoint two auditors at Satyam Computer Services as a part of this initiative. But these appointments will have to be ratified by Satyam shareholders.

3i Infotech lost 0.90%. The company agreed to buy JP Morgan Treasury Services'' national retail lockbox business (NRLB) to expand capacity and capabilities of its unit Regulus.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharma rose 0.96% after net profit jumped 18.14% to Rs 143.27 crore during Q1 March 2009 as against Q1 March 2008.