Post Session Commentary - Oct 23 2009

The Indian market closed with marginal gains after a sharp rally at the initial stage on the back of heavy profit booking at the higher level. The volatility was high during the session. The BSE Sensex closed just above the 16,800 mark while Nifty just below 5,000 mark. Though the mark opened with strong gains and traded firmly for most part of the day but the profit booking at the final hours did the spoil sport. The FMCG stocks remained in the lime light on the back of reports by Assocham that this sector is expected to witness growth of 20% in July-September period this fiscal up from 14% in the previous quarter. From the sectoral front, FMCG (3.03%), Health Care (2.05%), IT (2.04%) and Bankex (1.31%) indices closed with decent gains.

The market during the trading session witnessed high volatility. The market shot up since the initial bell breaking the past three days of losing trend tracking the firm cues from the global markets. On the global front, the US markets closed on a firm note on Thursday as investors were carried away by some better than expected earnings and shrugged off a disappointing jobless report. The participants welcomed fresh set of better-than-expected earnings reports mainly from Travelers and 3M that surprises the market. Fellow companies AT&T, McDonald''''s and Merck also reported better-than-expected earnings for the current quarter. In economic front, the latest weekly jobless claims came in at 531,000, which is worse than the 515,000 that had been widely expected. Continuing claims came in at 5.92 million, which is a bit worse than the 5.97 million that was expected. This is the lowest level since the week ended March 28. Moreover, the leading indicators for September shot up 1.0%, as against 0.8% that was widely expected.

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 18 stocks ended in positive territory and 12 in negative territory. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained firm as 1,414 stocks closed in green while 1,327 stocks closed in red and 110 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 21.07 points or (0.13%) at 16,810.81 and NSE Nifty closed up by 8.45 points or (0.17%) at 4,997.05. BSE Mid Caps and BSE Small Caps closed with gains of 66.62 points and 25.73 points at 6,510.89 and 7,673.50 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 17,006.77 and intraday low of 16,765.20.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are Reliance Inds (4.04%), Grasim Inds (3.12%), Tata Motors (2.31%), L&T (2.31%), Tata Steel (2.20%), Bharti Airtel (1.63%), Reliance Infra (1.56%), Bhel (1.56%) and Hero Honda (1.20%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are ITC (4.97%), M&M (2.80%), Tata Power (2.59%), Hindalco Inds (2.28%), Infosys (2.20%) and TCS (2.18%).

On the global markets front, the Asian markets that opened before the Indian market, closed in green. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng, Jakarta Composite, Strait Times and Seoul Composite ended up by 1.85%, 1.71%, 1.43%, 1.24% and 0.60% at 3,107.84, 22,589.73, 2,467.95, 2,715.34 and 1,640.17 respectively.

European markets, which opened after the Indian market, are trading higher. In Paris the CAC 40 is up by 0.91% at 3,855.54, in Frankfurt DAX index is trading up by 0.89% at 5,814.21 and in London FTSE 100 is higher by 1.12% at 5,265.70.

BSE REALTY index was at 4,522.81 down by 1.47 points or by (0.03%) The main losers were Penland Ltd down by (3.39%) at Rs.88.25, Unitech Ltd down by (1.65%) at Rs.98.65, Ansal Infras down by (1.34%) at Rs.77.55, Phoenix Mill down by (1%) at Rs.167.85, Housing Dev down by (0.71%) at Rs.376.4.

BSE METAL index was at 15,420.96 up by 67.07 points or by (0.44%) The main gainers were Hind.Zinc up by (7.6%) at Rs.934.05, Welsp Guj Sr up by (3.7%) at Rs.280.05, Hindalco In up by (2.28%) at Rs.141.35, Jindal Saw up by (2.09%) at Rs.801.9, Sterlite In up by (1.69%) at Rs.829.35.

BSE BANKEX index was at 10,231.41 up by 132.76 points or by (1.31%) The main gainers were Indian Overs up by (4.75%) at Rs.133.45, Indus Ind Bk up by (4.55%) at Rs.139.05, Yes Bank up by (3.4%) at Rs.255.65, Allahabad Bk up by (3.17%) at Rs.130.15, Axis Bank up by (2.93%) at Rs.994.8.

BSE FMCG index was at 2,824.71 up by 82.98 points or by (3.03%) The main gainers were Dabur India Ltd. up by (5.85%) at Rs.151.05, I T C Ltd up by (4.97%) at Rs.259.85, Godrej Cons up by (2.44%) at Rs.269.2, Colgate Palm up by (2.19%) at Rs.708.4, Britania In up by (1.25%) at Rs.1721.65.

BSE HC index was at 4,401.80 up by 88.32 points or by (2.05%) The main gainers were Dishman Phar up by (7.38%) at Rs.259.75, Pirama Healt up by (6.71%) at Rs.390.6, Dr.Reddys Laboratories Ltd. up by (6.21%) at Rs.960.2, Lupin Ltd up by (4.45%) at Rs.1252.6, Ipca Lab Ltd.* up by (3.03%) at Rs.835.

BSE OIL&GAS index was at 10,006.69 down by 278.73 points or by (2.71%) The main losers were Gail India down by (4.32%) at Rs.362.85, Reliance down by (4.04%) at Rs.2047.3, Aban Offsho down by (1.67%) at Rs.1540.6, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. down by (1.17%) at Rs.353.7, Bharat Petroleum Corporation L down by (0.68%) at Rs.518.7.

BSE IT index was at 4,528.43 up by 90.62 points or by (2.04%) The main gainers were Mphasis Ltd up by (3.89%) at Rs.673.7, Rolta Ind up by (3.82%) at Rs.194.3, Aptech Ltd up by (2.55%) at Rs.263.15, Patni Comput up by (2.52%) at Rs.453.9, Infosys Technologies Ltd.-Ordi up by (2.2%) at Rs.2260.2, The main losers were Oracle Fin

Jubilant Organosys surged 12.52% to close at Rs 237.30 strong quarterly results. The company has posted a net profit of Rs 554.90 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 as against net loss of Rs (243.90) million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008. Moreover, the company’s board has approved raising capital through issue of equity or equity related instruments upto Rs 500 Crores.

Piramal Health Care shot up 6.71% to close Rs 390.60 on good quarterly numbers. The company has posted a net profit for the period of Rs 1142.20 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 as against Rs 694.40 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.