Post Session Commentary - Oct 22 2009

Indian market closed on a downbeat note tracking the weakness in the global markets and a surge in inflation figure above the 1% mark to 1.2%, which put pressures on the investors’ sentiments. The BSE Sensex closed below the 16,800 mark while Nifty below 4,990 mark. A steep fall in US market overnight due to disappointing economic reports and poor results along with heavy sell off across the Asian markets and weakness in the European markets weighed on the investors’ sentiments. After opening marginally higher, the market soon tumbled to drift downwards but gained some strength to cut off most of the initial losses after the early trend showed that Congress and NCP duo were leading in the assembly election in Maharashtra. But the weakness in the European market do the spoilsport that led the market to fresh day’s low in the afternoon trade.

The market witnessed high intraday volatility. The US stock market on Wednesday closed lower due to heavy selling pressures in the final hour. The financial stocks slipped under a strong fit of selling pressure despite strong earnings from Morgan Stanley and U.S. Bancorp. The downturn was across the board and left many of the major sectors to settle at session lows. Even energy stocks couldn’t hold their gains and closed negative. Energy stocks had been in limelight by strong oil prices, which to $82 per barrel mark following the latest oil inventory data.

On the domestic front, the wholesale price index surged to 1.2% for the week ended October 10, 2009 from 0.92% in the previous week. The wholesale price index for all commodities stood at 242.2, up 0.1 per cent from a week earlier. Moreover, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) projected that India’s economy might grow by 6.5 per cent in 2009-10 and even touch 6.75 per cent, despite poor monsoon. However, the panel said the growth was not likely to be lower than 6.25 per cent. PMEAC has projected the agriculture sector to fell by 2 per cent as against 1.6 per cent growth in the previous year while the services sector would enhance by 8.2 per cent as against 9.7 per cent growth last year. The government today will unveil the inflation data.

Among the Sensex pack 23 stocks ended in red territory and 7 in green territory. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained negative as 1875 stocks closed in red while 871 stocks closed in green and 79 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 219.43 points or (1.29%) at 16,789.74 and NSE Nifty ended down by 75 points or (1.48%) at 4,988.60. BSE Mid Caps and BSE Small Caps closed with losses of 139.73 points and 152.62 points at 6,444.27 and 7,647.77 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 17,031.54 and intraday low of 16,721.26.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are JP Associates (6.84%), DLF (4.93%), ICICI Bank (4.08%), L&T (3.86%), Tata Motors (3.61%), Reliance Infra (3.10%), Grasim Inds (2.78%), SBI (2.50%) and RIL (2.24%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are Infosys (2.13%), ITC (1.58%), HUL (1.44%), Bharti Airtel (1.20%), Mahindra and Mahindra (1.07%) and HDFC bank (0.39%).


On the global markets front, the Asian markets that opened before the Indian market, closed in red. Jakarta Composite, Seoul Composite, Taiwan Weighted, Nikkei and Hang Seng ended down by 1.76%, 1.42%, 1.21%, 0.64% and 0.48% at 2,433.18, 1,630.35, 7,607.93, 10,267.17 and 22,210.52 respectively.

European markets, which opened after the Indian market, are trading lower. In Paris the CAC 40 is lower by 1.45% at 3,816.94, in Frankfurt DAX index is trading down by 1.43% at 5,750.19 and in London FTSE 100 is lower by 1.12% at 5,199.01.

BSE REALTY indexwas at 4,524.28 down by 217.54 points or by (4.59%) The main losers were Housing Dev down by (5.5%) at Rs.379.1, Unitech Ltd down by (5.42%) at Rs.100.3, Dlf Ltd down by (4.93%) at Rs.448.75, Sobha Dev down by (4.38%) at Rs.243.55, Ansal Infras down by (4.15%) at Rs.78.6, The main gainers were Mahindralife up by (1.89%) at Rs.372.65,

BSE METAL index was at 15,353.89 down by 288.11 points or by (1.84%) The main losers were Jai Corp Lim down by (4.93%) at Rs.199.65, Jsw Sl down by (4.87%) at Rs.869.1, Steel Author down by (4.12%) at Rs.182.7, Jindal Saw down by (3.93%) at Rs.785.5, Nmdc Ltd down by (2.28%) at Rs.338.65.

BSE BANKEX index was at 10,098.65 down by 211.33 points or by (2.05%) The main losers were Karnataka Bk down by (4.31%) at Rs.157.65, Canara Bank down by (4.25%) at Rs.372.85, Indian Overs down by (4.21%) at Rs.127.4, Icici Bank L down by (4.08%) at Rs.891.05, Kotak Bank down by (2.67%) at Rs.796.85,

BSE FMCG index was at 2,741.73 up by 25.76 points or by (0.95%) The main gainers were Marico Ltd up by (3.78%) at Rs.101.65, I T C Ltd up by (1.58%) at Rs.247.55, Hind Uni Lt up by (1.44%) at Rs.278.05, Colgate Palm up by (0.27%) at Rs.693.2,

BSE CD index was at 3,620.37 down by 98.41 points or by (2.65%) The main losers were Rajesh Expot down by (4.69%) at Rs.74.1, Titan Ind. down by (3.58%) at Rs.1326.25, Gitanjali Ge* down by (2.92%) at Rs.124.7, Videocon Ind down by (1.56%) at Rs.250, Blue Star L down by (1.41%) at Rs.375.1,

BSE OIL&GAS index was at 10,285.42 down by 164.93 points or by (1.58%) The main losers were Essar Oil Ltd. down by (3.54%) at Rs.156.85, Ril Nat Res down by (2.31%) at Rs.84.7, Reliance down by (2.24%) at Rs.2133.55, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. down by (0.94%) at Rs.357.9, Indian Oil C down by (0.82%) at Rs.647.85, The main gainers were Cairn Ind up by (1.07%) at Rs.283,

BSE IT index was at 4,437.81 up by 34.89 points or by (0.79%) The main gainers were Infosys Technologies Ltd.-Ordi up by (2.13%) at Rs.2211.5, Patni Comput up by (1.18%) at Rs.442.75, Hcl Techno up by (0.68%) at Rs.324.75,

Piramal Healthcare Ltd declined by 4.55% to close at Rs. 366.05. The Company has posted a Net profit for the period of Rs 1142.20 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 as compared to Rs 694.40 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.

Allahabad Bank fell by 1.48% to close at Rs. 126.15. The company has posted a net profit of Rs 3335.909 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 as compared to Rs 416.827 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.

L&T slipped by 3.86% to close at Rs. 1,608.50. The Company has posted a profit after tax of Rs 5804.00 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 as compared to Rs 4602.60 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.