Post Market Commentary - May 22 2009

Markets rolled its volatile journey towards northward to close with gains on firm cues from European markets along with positive US index futures. However, lower Asian stocks took beating on the domestic bourses during mid session. Further, stocks slashed losses and bounced back on hopes of economic reforms by the new UPA government. The come back of UPA government barring Left parties, raised hopes that the long-awaited reforms may finally take place and consequently will help the economy spring back from the slowdown.

The market today had gap down opening mirroring negative cues from the markets all over the world. The Asian markets were lower and the US stock markets on Thursday closed in red on the back of disappointing economic data and of downgrading of the UK economy to negative from stable by Standard & Poor. Further, Indian benchmark indices gained some ground on support of buying in key stocks. During mid session, market again slipped into red, though it managed to reduce losses and recovered later. After exhibiting volatility during the trading, finally market managed to hold its gains and ended above previous session’s closing. BSE Sensex ended above 13,800 level and NSE Nifty closed above 4,200 level. From the sectoral front, mainly Capital Goods, Bank, Pharma, Oil & Gas, IT and Power stocks supported the buying sentiments. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also followed the same trend. However, most of the selling was seen in Consumer Durable, Auto, Realty and Metal, stocks.

Among the Sensex pack 15 stocks ended in green territory and 15 in red. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained positive as 2139 stocks closed in green while 595 stocks closed in red and 49 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 150.61 points at 13,887.15 and NSE Nifty ended up by 27.60 points at 4,238.50. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 81.81 and 170.63 points at 4,755.68 and 5,513.16 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 13,936.93 and intraday low of 13,611.30.

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are L&T Ltd (4.73%), ICICI Bank (4.54%), JP Reliance (3.13%), NTPC Ltd (1.93%), Sun Pharma (1.59%), Infosys Tech (1.11%), HDFC (1.09%), SBI (1.01%) and Reliance Infra (0.97%).

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are Sterlite Industries (4.32%), M&M Ltd (3.57%), Tata Motors (3.29%), ONGC Ltd (2.74%), Hindalco (2.53%), DLF Ltd (2.34%), TCS Ltd (2.27%) and Grasim Industries (2.20%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended mostly lower tracking Wall Street losses overnight. There were concerns of the US losing its AAA rating and along with worries about the strength of the economic recovery in China. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225 and Seoul Composite ended lower by 13.02, 136.97, 38.34 and 17.90 points at 2,597.60, 17,062.52, 9,225.81 and 1,403.75 respectively. However Straits Times index gained 34.30 points at 2,245.27.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading in green. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading up by 53.73 points at 4,954.40 and in London FTSE 100 is trading higher by 35.98 points at 4,381.45.

The BSE Capital Goods index closed with increase of (2.90%) or 313.29 points at 11,108.25 on expectations of increased infrastructure spending by the Congress-led UPA government to increase growth. Scrips that gained are Praj Industries (12.11%), SKF India (8.37%), Everest Kanto (7.82%), Lakshmi MA W (7.65%) and Aiaengineer (5.81%).

The BSE Bank stocks ended higher by (1.8%) or 138.33 points to close at 7,827.56 on hopes that the UPA government will follow financial sector reforms. Major gainers are Karnataka Bank (14.14%), IDBI Bank (4.60%), ICICI Bank (4.54%), Kotak Bank (4.19%) and Axis Bank (3.78%).

The BSE Pharma index advanced by (1.77%) or 58.58 points to close at 3,377.31. Main gainers are Wockhardt Ltd (8.76%), Glenmark Pharma (8.57%), IPCA Lab (7.77%), Biocon Ltd (7.63%) and Opto Circuit (6.01%).

The BSE Oil & Gas ended up by (1.32%) or 127.54 points at 9,814.23. Gainers are Reliance (3.13%), Reliance Pet (2.91%), RNRL (2.35%), Cairn Ind (0.73%) and BPCL (0.67%).
The BSE IT index gained (1.06%) or 29.61 points to close at 2,829.93. Gainers are NIIT Ltd (23%), Tech Mahindra (13.93%), Aptech Ltd (13.27%), Mphasis Ltd (11.37%) and Moser Bayer (10.87%).

The BSE Consumer Durable index lost (1.13%) or 28.61 points to close at 2,507.79. Titan Ind (5.13%), Rajesh Export (1.03%) and Videocon Ind (0.62%) ended in negative territory.

Bharti Airtel gained 0.80%. The company is set to launch a low-cost online computer powered by Microsoft and Nivio. The Airtel Net PC is a plug-and-play online computer, including a 15-inch LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse and Nivio companion (which enables the PC to connect to a backend Linux-run server for storage and applications).

NTPC Ltd ended up by 1.93%. The Company has posted a net profit after tax of Rs 21133.50 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 as compared to Rs 13394.80 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

Tata Steel closed down by 0.72%. The company at last has got the prospecting licence (PL) from the Jharkhand government for the Ankua iron ore mines.

Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd lost 1.23%. The company has acquired trademarks, product dossiers and marketing rights from Ochoa Laboratories Ltd (Ochoa) for its entire range of Dermatological and Lidrstyle products.

Federal Bank ended lower by 8.39%. The Bank has posted a net profit of Rs 1141.70 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 as compared to Rs 1028.60 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. Total Income has increased from Rs 8417.90 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2008 to Rs 10162.80 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009.