Pre Session Commentary - Aug 26 2009

Today domestic markets are likely to open positive as majority of Asian markets have opened in green. The better than expected consumer confidence data for the month of August helped US markets close with moderate gains. However the sentiments across Asian markets are positive exuding some rebound after yesterday’s selling pressure. In the domestic arena one could witness a range bound trade today as the bench mark indices had rebound yesterday before the fag ending of markets.

On Tuesday, domestic markets closed marginally higher after a volatile session. The sentiments were weak in the morning trading hour as Asian markets had opened with blood bath. However as the day progressed investors picked up stocks at lower level. Stocks moved between positive and negative territory during the trading on continuous bouts of buying and selling ahead of expiry of August 2009 contracts on Thursday, 27th August 2009. Despite negative European markets, the benchmark indices gained some ground and moved northward during afternoon trade on some buying seen among key stocks. However, profit booking was also witnessed following recent rally. Further, lower than normal rains this year have raised worries about growth in the economy of country. The BSE Sensex ended above 15,650 level and NSE Nifty closed above 4,650 mark.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 59.72 points at 15,688.47 and NSE Nifty ended up by 16.55 points at 4,659.35. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 33.15 and 99.37 points at 5,737.53 and 6,745.24 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 15,735.32 and intraday low of 15,423.39.

On Tuesday, US stock markets closed higher. The better than expected Consumer Confidence reading helped stocks gain remarkably during the opening trade. Consumer Confidence Index for August recorded at 54.1 than 47.9 that was widely expected and marked an improvement from the upwardly revised July reading of 47.4. The retail stocks were in the limelight as they gained 1.8% higher during the day’s trade. On the other hand financial stocks also provided a lot of support to the broader markets. The sector finished with a gain of 1.1%. The sentiments were further supported by the nomination of Ben Bernanke for the second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. US light crude oil futures for October delivery closed at $72.05 per barrel down by 3.1% on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed higher by 30.01 points at 9,539.29, NASDAQ index inclined by 6.25 points to 2,024.23 and the S&P 500 (SPX) closed high by 5.43 points at 1,028.00.

Indian ADRs ended mixed. In the telecom pack, MTNL remained unchanged, while Tata Communications was down 0.81%. In the banking space, ICICI Bank was up 1.16% and HDFC Bank was up 0.61%. In the IT sector, Infosys was up 1.7%, Patni was up 5.2%, while Satyam was up 1.87% and Wipro was up 2.2%. In the other sector, Sterlite was down 0.15%, Tata Motors was up 0.93% and Dr Reddys was down 0.67%.

The FIIs on Tuesday stood as net buyers in equity and net sellers in debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs 2,543.90 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs 48.30 Crore, while the gross equity sold stood at Rs 1,695.20 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs 103.60 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity and debt reported were Rs 848.60 Crore and Rs (55.30) Crore respectively.

On BSE, total number of shares traded were 53.41 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 6,339.93 Crore. On NSE, total number of shares traded were 97.10 Crore and total turnover was Rs 17,889.19 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Suzlon Energy with total volume traded 59841049 shares, followed by Unitech with 50264647, DLF with 9608861, Tata Motors with 9098617 and Hindalco with 9016841 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 923424 with a total turnover of Rs 20,539.62 Crore. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 849577 with a total turnover of Rs 26,501.14 crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 1696433 with a total turnover of Rs 39,334.10 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 63118 and notional turnover was Rs 1,966.40 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 4,545 and resistance at 4,602 and BSE Sensex has support at 15,312 and resistance at 15,525.