Market takes a breather

Today's major news

Reliance Industries to drill six new wells in KG-D6 block in 2010; the stock rises 1.51%.

Thermax bags order worth Rs240 crore; the stock closes 0.52% lower.

Four Soft wins contract from Mondial Logistics, the stock jumps 4.97%.

Subhash Projects bags two orders worth Rs62 crore; the stock surged 3.94%.

IRB Infrastructure bags order worth Rs800 crore, the stock ends the day 1.53% higher.

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Events Update

Food Inflation for the week ended December 26, 2009 softened to 18.22% against 19.83% in the previous week.

Post-market summary

Global signals

European indices traded lower in morning trades, as banking stocks fell ahead of Bank of England’s decision on interest rates. At the time of writing this report FTSE 100 was trading 0.32% lower.

All the major Asian indices except Shanghai Composite that rose marginally by 0.45% ended lower. SGX Nifty was down 32 points.

US stock futures opened marginally lower, as investors look forward to the Labor Department’s release of first-time claims numbers for jobless benefits for the week ended January 02, 2010.

Indian indices

Domestic markets declined for the first time in the year 2010 owing to weak overseas markets and selling in information technology stocks. The Sensex that opened flat, touched the day’s high of 17,733 and soon turned negative for the day’s low of 17566. At closing bell, Sensex closed at 17616, 85 points lower. Nifty closed 19 points lower at 5263.

Market sentiment

The market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining shares, was negative. Of the total 2,969 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,638 stocks declined, whereas 1,237 stocks advanced. Ninety four stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Oil & Gas stocks did well for the day with the index (BSE Oil & Gas) up by 1.24%. The other two sectors that were up for the day were consumer durable and metal. Rest of the 10 sectors were down, with the information technology sector down by 2.22%--the most for any sector--followed by BSE Auto that fell 1.72%.

On stocks’ front, GMDC surged the most by 10.22% followed by Hindustan Copper that rose 10.00% and Aban Offshore that jumped 7.45%. Among losers, Sintex Industries slid the most by 6.10% followed by Adani Enterprises that fell 4.20%.

Viewing volumes

IFCI, the industrial finance company, saw highest trading with over 1.02 crore shares changing hands on the BSE to be followed by Essar Oil (0.86 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.68 crore shares), wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (0.62 crore shares) and India’s second biggest realty company, Unitech (0.54 crore shares).