Pre Session Commentary - Sep 30 2009

Today domestic markets are likely to open positive as majority of Asian markets have opened in green. On the other hand US markets shed some gains to close in red due to poor consumer confidence data for the month of September. The opening could be a marginally higher, followed by a narrow range bound trade throughout the day as majority of frontline stocks have reached their peak levels. The domestic markets are likely to trade range bound today.

On Tuesday, Indian market extended its initial gains to close higher a wave of merger-and-acquisition activity in US market, glimmered a rally in Asian Stocks. Further, stocks raised also on sustained buying sentiments. Though, stocks pared some of its gains during afternoon trading as some profit booking emerged due to settlement issue, as the banks will remain closed tomorrow due to half yearly book closure. However, the markets managed to regain its momentum despite negative European stocks. In addition, benchmark indices witnessed a bit of volatility ahead of the closing of the market on coming Friday (Oct 2, 2009) due to celebration of the Gandhi Jayanti. The BSE Sensex ended above 16,800 level and NSE Nifty closed above 5,000 mark.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 159.91 or (0.96%) points at 16852.91 and NSE Nifty ended up by 47.90 points or (0.97%) at 5,006.85. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with gains of 37.87 and 69.34 points at 6,264.80 and 7,519.59 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 16,907.84 and intraday low of 16,802.80.

On Tuesday, US markets closed lower. There was lack of leadership in any of the sectors due to some poor consumer confidence data for September that recorded at 53.1 as against the expected 54.5 for the month of August. Markets started on a higher note due to better-than-expected S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Report for July. The report''s 20-City Composite reported a 13.3% year-over-year decline, which wasn''t bad as expected 14.2% decline. On macro economic level, FDIC will require insured institutions to prepay estimated quarterly risk-based assessments into 2012 seemed to weight on bank stocks. Diversified bank stocks plummeted by 1.9%. The consumer finance stocks were also worst hit as they lost 1.9%. Crude oil futures for the month of November delivery closed lower by 0.2% at $66.71 per barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed lower by 47.16 points at 9,742.20. NASDAQ index declined by 6.70 points at 2,124.04 and the S&P 500 (SPX) declined by 2.37 points to close at 1,060.61 points.

The FIIs on Tuesday stood as net buyers in equity and net sellers in debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs 5,440.30 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs 488.00 Crore, while the gross equity sold stood at Rs 2,128.40 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs 2,523.20 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity and debt reported were Rs 3,311.90 Crore and Rs (2,035.20) Crore respectively.

Today the major stock markets in Asia opened positive. The Shanghai Composite is trading higher by 9.65 at 2,764.19. Hang Seng is low by 56.88 points at 20,956.29. Further Japan''s Nikkei is up by 6.58 points at 10,106.78. Straits Times is also trading low by 7.16 points at 2,656.15 and South Korea’s Seoul Composite is up by 0.77 points at 1,690.82. Taiwan Weighted is also up by 79.52 points at 7,509.50.

On BSE, total number of shares traded were 46.92 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 5,027.48 Crore. On NSE, total number of shares traded were 77.01 Crore and total turnover was Rs 15,094.40 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Unitech with total volume traded 35044356 shares, followed by Suzlon Energy with 21922053, Bharti Airtel with 8253336, Hindalco with 7454430 and Ambuja Cements with 7300733 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 419976 with a total turnover of Rs 10,053.52 Crore. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 438609 with a total turnover of Rs 14,868.01 crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 756146 with a total turnover of Rs 19,049.40 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 36733 and notional turnover was Rs 1,273.11 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 4,979 and resistance at 5,049 and BSE Sensex has support at 16,744 and resistance at 16,986.