Pre Session Commentary - Oct 5 2009

Today domestic markets are likely to open negative as majority of Asian markets have opened with blood bath after the US market reported worst than expected job losses. The severe job losses data has once again raised apprehensions of the economic revival and market participants are most likely to take safe positions. In the domestic arena, one could observe selling pressure at this peak level, however sustained levels of benchmark indices would rely a lot on the movements of Asian and European markets. Domestic markets are likely to trade negative today.

On Thursday, markets closed the today’s session on flat note after exhibiting volatility during the trading as investors booked profit in key stocks. Fall in Asian stocks also weighed on sentiments. Domestic indices were not able to stick on a particular direction on continuous bouts of buying and selling. However, market gained some ground during afternoon session following positive opening of European markets. Besides, investors were booking long positions on abridged trading week. The market will remain close on Friday, 2 October 2009, on account of Gandhi Jayanti. Meanwhile, India’s wholesale inflation rate continued to rise, as increased 0.83% in the week ended 19th September from a year earlier. BSE Sensex ended above 17,100 level and NSE Nifty closed below 5,100 level.

The BSE Sensex closed slightly higher by 7.71 points at 17,134.55 and NSE Nifty ended flat at 5,083.4. BSE Mid Caps and Small Caps closed with losses of 22.15 and 2.86 points at 6,302.01 and 7,587.18 respectively. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 17,195.61 and intraday low of 17,059.36.

On Friday, the US stock market closed lower for the fourth consecutive day on the back of disappointing jobs report data. During the month of September, private employers hived off 263,000 jobs from payrolls. However economists had expected a total job loss of 175,000. The worse-than-expected jobs number caused the unemployment rate to increase to 9.8% from 9.7%. The factory orders for the month of August also plunged by 0.8%. As the trading progressed the retreating dollar helped markets bounce back from its severe losses during the morning trade. The green back closed with a loss of 0.2%. Financial stocks gyrated towards north to record modest gain of 1.1% after a loss of 2.1% during the morning trade, however later it managed to close with a minimal loss of 0.1%. US light crude oil futures for November delivery closed down by 1.4% at $69.83 per barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) slumped by 21.61 points at 9,487.67. NASDAQ index fell by 9.37 points to 2,048.11 and the S&P 500 (SPX) closed marginally lower by 4.64 points at 1,025.21.

The Indian ADRs ended mixed on Friday. In the IT space, Infosys was up 1.27%, Satyam was down 0.80%, Wipro was up 0.96% and Patni was up 0.66%. In the banking space, HDFC Bank was up 0.65% and ICICI Bank was up 2.13%. In the telecom space, Tata Comm was down 0.10% and MTNL was up 1.39%. In the other space, Sterlite was up 1.15%, Tata Motors was down 2.32% and Dr Reddys was down 1.72%.

The FIIs on Thursday stood as net buyers in equity and debt. Gross equity purchased stood at Rs 4,687.90 Crore and gross debt purchased stood at Rs 294.80 Crore, while the gross equity sold stood at Rs 3,179.00 Crore and gross debt sold stood at Rs 78.10 Crore. Therefore, the net investment of equity and debt reported were Rs 1,508.90 Crore and Rs 216.70 Crore respectively.

On BSE, total number of shares traded were 60.74 Crore and total turnover stood at Rs 6,551.16 Crore. On NSE, total number of shares traded were 94.65 Crore and total turnover was Rs 20,111.83 Crore.

Top traded volumes on NSE Nifty – Unitech with total volume traded 40105979 shares, followed by Bharti Airtel with 33938386, Suzlon Energy with 17103048, DLF with 11928373 and Ambuja Cements with 11863148 shares.

On NSE Future and Options, total number of contracts traded in index futures was 502600 with a total turnover of Rs 12,436.92 Crore. Along with this total number of contracts traded in stock futures were 588763 with a total turnover of Rs 20,361.80 crore. Total numbers of contracts for index options were 778302 with a total turnover of Rs 19,734.08 Crore and total numbers of contracts for stock options were 53469 and notional turnover was Rs 1,810.35 Crore.

Today, Nifty would have a support at 4,996 and resistance at 5,050 and BSE Sensex has support at 16,864 and resistance at 17,035.