Post Session Commentary - Nov 4 2009

Breaking the past six days of losing trend, the Indian stock market closed on an upbeat note tracking the strong rally across the Asian markets and strong opening of the European markets. Also the comments from the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government does not plan to withdraw the series of stimulus that it had announced earlier in order to revive the economy or impose curbs on the rising capital flows, boosted the investors’ sentiments to book their positions across the board. Moreover, the reports that the business activity among the services companies surged to its highest level in more than a year in October on the back of expansion of new work orders, activity and employment at faster rates, also led the market to gain further grounds. Along with this, the report from the Planning Commission that the economy is expected to expand by 6.3% in the year to March 2010 and the statement from the Trade Minister Anand Sharma that the exports may start its upward trend in annual terms from the quarter ended March 2010 and the government will keep on providing support to the ailing sectors, also lifted the investors’ sentiments. Heavy buying across the sectoral indices led the BSE Sensex closed above the 15,900 mark while Nifty just above 4,700 mark. From the sectoral front, the Realty stocks remained in the lime light as most buying was witnessed from this basket, The Realty index closed with gains of 9.65% followed by Metal (up 5.36%), IT (up 3.99%), Oil & Gas (up 3.83%) and Teck (up 3.38%).

The market witnessed a bit of volatility during the trading session. After a gap up opening the market lost some ground to pare some of its gains but soon gathered momentum to keep on marching forward till the closing of the session to close on an optimistic note. The cues from the global markets are supportive as the Asian market closed with decent gains note tracking the better than expected profit being reported by Korea Exchange Bank. Moreover, the World Bank increased its forecasts for the Chinese economy by saying that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will increase 8.4% this year and 8.7% in 2010 due to huge fiscal and monetary stimulus. Moreover the US markets closed on a mixed note. There is two day policy meeting of US Federal Reserve on November 3-4 and it is expected that it will hold the interest rates.

The HSBC Markit Business Activity Index, which was based on a survey of 400 firms, surged to a 13-month high of 56.78 in October after having slipped to a three-month low of 54.37 in September. The index has been above 50. Before that, it shrank for six months, hitting a trough of 40.3 in February.

Among the Sensex pack 27 stocks ended in positive territory and 3 stocks in negative territory. The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market remained strong as 1,774 stocks closed in green while 946 stocks closed in red and 59 stocks remained unchanged in BSE.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 507.19 points or (3.29%) at 15,912.13 and NSE Nifty closed up by 146.90 points or (3.22%) at 4,710.80. The BSE Mid Caps closed higher by 204.91 points at 5,994.40 and the BSE Small Caps closed up by 147.29 points at 6,888.53. The BSE Sensex touched intraday high of 15,929.09 and intraday low of 15,487.97.

Losers from the BSE Sensex pack are Sun Pharma (0.78%), DLF (9.04%), Grasim Inds (0.39%) and Tata Power (0.19%).

Gainers from the BSE Sensex pack are JP Associates (9.42%), Hindalco Inds (9.16%), DLF (8.48%), Sterlite Inds (6.63%), Reliance Inds (5.49%), Tata Steel (5.33%), ICICI Bank (5.16%), Infosys (4.69%) and ACC (4.02%).

On the global markets front, the Asian markets that opened before the Indian market, closed in green. Taiwan Weighted, Seoul Composite, Hang Seng, Jakarta Composite and Strait Times closed higher by 1.97%, 1.94%, 1.76%, 1.62% and 1.03% at 7,467.04, 1,579.93, 21,614.77, 2,371.85 and 2,648.64 respectively.

European markets, which opened after the Indian market, are trading in positive. In Paris the CAC 40 is higher by 1.51% at 3,638.27, in Frankfurt DAX index is trading up by 1.38% at 5,427.29 and in London FTSE 100 is higher by 0.73% at 5,074.18.

BSE REALTY indexwas at 3,786.82 up by 333.19 points or by (9.65%) The main gainers were Indbul Real up by (15.76%) at Rs.242.45, Unitech Ltd up by (10.04%) at Rs.82.2, Housing Dev up by (10.03%) at Rs.321, Dlf Ltd up by (8.48%) at Rs.365.1, Parsvnath up by (8.05%) at Rs.103.35,

BSE METAL index was at 13,813.32 up by 702.64 points or by (5.36%) The main gainers were Hindalco In up by (9.16%) at Rs.119.15, Sterlite In up by (6.63%) at Rs.770.05, Jsw Sl up by (5.94%) at Rs.721.05, Jindal Saw up by (5.58%) at Rs.693.05, Tata Stl up by (5.33%) at Rs.469.35,

BSE BANKEX index was at 9,437.91 up by 281.75 points or by (3.08%) The main gainers were Icici Bank L up by (5.16%) at Rs.827.8, Allahabad Bk up by (4.76%) at Rs.117.65, Canara Bank up by (4.26%) at Rs.343.9, Idbi Bank L up by (4.06%) at Rs.111.55, Yes Bank up by (4.01%) at Rs.226.95.

BSE POWER index was at 2,859.48 up by 46.70 points or by (1.66%) The main gainers were Tornt Power up by (7.91%) at Rs.295.25, Gvk Powerinf up by (7.59%) at Rs.48.2, Gmr Infrastr up by (7.49%) at Rs.63.15, Lanco Infra up by (5.43%) at Rs.486.2, Rel Infra up by (3.65%) at Rs.1031.65.

BSE OIL&GAS index was at 9,394.82 up by 346.91 points or by (3.83%) The main gainers were Aban Offsho up by (8.1%) at Rs.1194.1, Reliance up by (5.49%) at Rs.1920.65, Essar Oil Ltd. up by (4.98%) at Rs.128.5, Cairn Ind up by (3.13%) at Rs.264.95, Ril Nat Res up by (2.33%) at Rs.68.1.

BSE IT index was at 4,444.04 up by 170.66 points or by (3.99%) The main gainers were Rolta Ind up by (8.13%) at Rs.162.25, Niit Ltd up by (5.66%) at Rs.57.85, Patni Comput up by (4.7%) at Rs.456.95, Infosys Technologies Ltd.-Ordi up by (4.69%) at Rs.2239.6, Aptech Ltd up by (3.97%) at Rs.174.1,

Tata Communications closed up by 0.76% at Rs. 357. The company and Carlson Wagonllt Travel announced that they will team up to provide CWT Telepresence- an enhancement to the company’s broader demand management offering- which will allow CWT clients to access Tata Communications network of public Cisco Telepresence Suites around the World.

IVRCL surged 4.55% to close at Rs. 353.85 as the company in joint venture with M/s Unity Infraprojects has bagged orders valued at Rs. 1,145.88 crore under International Competitive Bidding.

JSW Steel shot up 5.94% to close at Rs. 721.05. The company has reported a growth of 34% in crude steel production in October 2009 compared to that of corresponding month in the last fiscal. The crude steel production in the onth of October stood at 4.53 lakh tons while Rolled product-flat at 2.96 lakh tons and rolled products-long at 0.75 lakh tons.