Post Session Commentary - May 11 2009

Indian market closed on a featureless note mainly due to huge selling pressure in the benchmark indices. Unfavorable cues from the global markets contributed largely to the southward journey. Additionally, political uncertainty also weighed on sentiments with on going polling for India''s 15th Lok Sabha. However, market witnessed gain in early trade with Sensex surged past the psychological 12,000 mark before reporting a steep fall.

The market today opened on firm note backed by positive cues from the markets all over the world. The US stock markets on Friday closed higher with the financials rallied after the government released the results of its stress test and on optimism that the economy is recovering. However, domestic stocks were not able to hold the same momentum and slipped ahead of Election results this weekend. Further, market continued to extend its losses due to some profit booking pressure. Finally, markets slipped sharply below the previous close as negative opening of European markets also weighed on the sentiments. BSE Sensex ended below 11,700 level and NSE Nifty closed below 3,600 level. From the sectoral front, all indices ended in red. Among those, Reality, Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Metal, Teck, Power and Oil & Gas stocks contributed to most the selling pressure. Mid Cap and Small Cap stocks also remained out of favor during the trading session.

Among the Sensex pack 24 stocks ended in red territory and 6 in green. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained weak as 1573 stocks closed in red while 920 stocks closed in green and 89 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 193.44 points at 11,682.99 and NSE Nifty ended down by 66.10 points at 3,554.60. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 59 and 91.94 points at 3,711.42 and 4,185.32 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 12,026.60 and intraday low of 11,621.30.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are DLF Ltd (5.10%), SBI (4.86%), RCom (4.64%), JP Associates (4.61%), Tata Motors (4.28%), Tata Steel (3.84%), Ranbaxy Lab (2.98%), HUL (2.94%), L&T Ltd (2.82%), Bharti Airtel (2.57%), Grasim Industries (2.57%), BHEL (2.53%) and TCS Ltd (2.33%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are M&M Ltd (1.57%), ICICI Bank (0.55%), Sun Pharma (0.46%), Maruti Suzuki (0.33%) and Tata Power (0.24%).

On the global markets front the Asian markets which opened before the Indian market, ended mixed. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Straits Times index ended lower by 45.90, 301.92 and 72.11 points at 2,579.75, 17,087.95 and 2,166.10 respectively. However, Nikkei 225 and Seoul Composite gained 19.15 and 3.03 points at 9,451.98 and 1,415.16 respectively.

European markets which opened after the Indian market are trading mixed. In Frankfurt the DAX index is trading down by 52.03 points at 4,861.87 while in London FTSE 100 is trading up by 20.80 points at 4,419.48.

The BSE Reality index under performed the benchmark indices as ended down by (5.19%) or 122.34 points at 2,233.27 on profit booking. Main losers are Unitech Ltd (8.90%), Orbit Co (8.45%), Ansal Infra (5.64%), Parsvnath (5.22%) and DLF Ltd (5.10%).

The BSE Consumer Durable index ended lower by (2.59%) or 50.48 points to close at 1,898.01. Videocon Ind (6.30%), Rajesh Export (6.21%), Blue Star L (4.61%), and Gitanjali GE (2.25%) ended in negative territory.

The BSE Capital Goods index declined (2.48%) or 211.16 points to close at 8,296.13. Main losers are Everest Kanto (5.12%), Elecon Eng C (4.69%), Praj Industries (4.36%), Gammon Indi (4.31%) and Walchand In (4.30%).

The BSE Power stocks dropped by (1.88%) or 40.86 points to close at 2,135.48. Major losers are Torrent Power (5.70%), Neyveli LIG (4.86%), GMR Infra (4.65%), RPower (3.90%) and Siemens Ltd (2.97%).

The BSE Teck index lost (1.77%) or 39.30 points to close at 2,187.31. Losers are Deccan Chro (6.26%), Aptech Ltd (5.84%), UTV Software (4.98%), ITC Ltd (4.96%) and HCL Tech (4.95%).

The BSE Metal index decreased by (1.72%) or 136.70 points at 7,813.17 as metal prices moved back on the London Metal Exchange. Scrips that lost are Ispat Industries (6.44%), Welspan Gujarat (4.73%), Steel Authority (4.12%), Hindustan Zinc (4.10%) and Tata Steel (3.84%).

Aurobindo Pharma Limited ended up by 5.90%. The company announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Aurobindo Pharma Australia Pty Ltd has received yet another approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Government of Australia for the registration of Simvastatin Tablets 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 mg.

Four Soft gained 0.46%. Prime Cargo Netherlands BV, a Netherlands based freight forwarding company has selected Four Soft''s integrated freight forwarding solution - 4S eTrans SME, to rationalize and automate its freight forwarding processes.

JSW Steel Limited advanced by 3.37%. The company reported a growth of 60% in Crude Steel production for April 2009 compared to that of corresponding month in the last fiscal year. The healthy growth in production is mainly attributable to the production from 2.8 MTPA expansion project at Vijayanagar works.

NIIT ended down by 4.96%. The company has entered into a contract with the Department of Education, Government of Gujarat to introduce Computer Aided Learning in 1870 high and higher secondary government schools for classes 9-12 in Gujarat.

Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd (Orchid) tumbled 7.19%. The company has received tentative approval from the US Food, and Drug Administration (US FDA) for its drug Sumatriptan Succinate tablets.

Polaris Software lost 3.13%. The company announced that Saigon Hanoi Bank, one of the leading commercial banks in Vietnam has selected Polaris'' Global Universal Banking platform (Intellect 10.0) to be the technology enabler for its growth journey.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd contracted 2.94% after the company reported a lower-than-expected rise of 3.68% in net profit to Rs 394.99 crore in January-March 2009 quarter over the corresponding quarter in the previous year.

State Bank of India Ltd slipped 4.86% despite net profit surged 45.62% in Q4 March 2009 over Q4 March 2008. The bank posted a net profit of Rs 2,742.31 cr for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, as against Rs. 1,883.25 cr in the earlier corresponding period.