Nifty below 5000

Today's major news

Hindustan Copper to raise Rs1,700 crore via follow-on public offer; the stock rises 2.27%.

Max India to consider preferential issue; the stock ends the day 2.52% higher.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries skeptical on Taro’s current management's move: the stock jumps 1.12%.

Fortis completes Wockhardt Hospital acquisition; the stock closed the session 1.26% higher.

Tata Motors global sales rose by 62% in November 2009; the stock surges 3.16%.

Post-market summary

Global signals

European indices opened higher and traded firm with energy stocks taking the lead. At the time of writing this report FTSE 100 was trading 0.41% higher.

Except Taiwan Weighted, all other major Asian indices closed lower. SGX Nifty closed 45 points lower.

US stock futures opened marginally higher on Friday, that signals higher opening in the US markets.

Indian indices

On weak markets overseas, Nifty failed to sustain 5000 and ended marginally below the psychological level. The market remained range-bound for most part of the day before dipping sharply on feeble global indicators and selling pressure in realty and oil & gas stocks. The Sensex opened lower by 38 points and swung by 199 points for the day. The day’s high was16899 and the low was 16693. Sensex closed 174 points lower while Nifty wrapped the session 54 points lower at 4988.

Market sentiment

Declining shares outnumbered advancing ones. On the BSE, 1,650 stocks declined against 1,180 advancing stocks. Eighty five stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Health care stocks did well for the day with the index up by 1.32%. The other two sectors that were up for the day were consumer durable and auto. Rest of the 10 sectors were down, with oil and gas sector down by 2.06%, the most for any sector, to be followed by BSE Oil & Gas that fell by 1.74%.

Bajaj Holdings & Investments was the star stock of the day being up by 6.64% for the day to be followed by Lupin that was up by 4.82% and Essar Oil that rose by 4.19%. On losers list, Jain Irrigation topped, being down by 3.83% at the closing, to be followed by Pantaloon Retail that fell by 3.76% and Godrej Consumer that shed 3.52%.

Viewing volumes

Unitech, India’s second biggest realty company, saw highest trading with over 1.34 crore shares changing hands on the BSE to be followed by wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (1.14 crore shares), industrial finance company IFCI (0.56 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (0.52 crore shares) and India’s no 1 realty company DLF (0.46 crore shares).