Bears get overbearing

Today's major news

IPO norms for insurers finalised by IRDA

Food inflation softens to 17.22%

Inflation rises to 9.9% in March

Click here for more stories

Global signals

European stocks were trading marginally lower on Thursday as mining shares fell after copper price fall. At the time writing of this report, FTSE 100 (London) was trading 0.08% lower.

All the major Asian indices closed in the positive territory on Thursday, except Shanghai Composite (China) and Straits Times (Singapore) that closed marginally lower. SGX Nifty closed 48 points lower.

US stock futures point to a weak start for the Wall Street on Thursday as investors keep an eye on UPS after the company said that its first-quarter earnings per share would be much higher than it had expected and raising its outlook for the year.

Indian indices

Shrugging aside buoyant global equities, robust economic growth readings out of China and easing inflation back home, Indian indices slipped for the third straight day. The dip was on the back of fresh skirmishes on turf battle between the securities and exchange board of India (SEBI) and insurance regulatory and development authority (IRDA), fall in financial stocks ahead of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s quarterly monetary policy review scheduled on April 20, 2010 and continued selling in Sensex heavyweights Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank.

The Sensex that opened 17 points lower (at 17804) but soon turned positive to touch the day’s high of 17975 and traded in the positive territory till the noon trade. However, at noon the Sensex made an about turn to negative as selling intensified in Sensex heavyweight Reliance Industries that dragged the Sensex lower to hit the day’s low of 17619, before closing at 17639, 183 points lower while Nifty shut at 5274, 49 points down.

India's food price index rose to 17.22% in the 12 months to April 3, 2010 while the fuel index was up 12.43%. The rise in the food price index was slightly lower than an annual rise of 17.70% in the previous week. The wholesale price index (WPI), on the other hand rose an annual 9.90% in March, the fastest pace in 17 months, driven by higher food and fuel prices.

Market sentiment

Declining shares outnumbered gaining ones for the second straight session. Of the 2,999 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,708 (57%) stocks declined, whereas 1,222 (41%) stocks advanced. Sixty nine stocks remained unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Of the 13 sectoral indices in the BSE, eight were battered. Among the major losers, BSE Oil & Gas lost 1.83%, the BSE Bankex dropped 1.42%, BSE Capital Goods shed 1.40%, BSE FMCG declined by 1.15%. Bucking the downtrend, BSE Realty gained 1.59%, BSE Consumer Durables advanced 0.69% and BSE Health Care up 0.68%.

On the gainers’ list, Apollo Hospital surged the most by 5.78%, followed by JP Hydro power, which rose 4.31%, and Unitech that jumped 3.41%. On the losers’ list, Max India topped the losers’ chart, with a loss of 9.39%, followed by Aditya Birla Nuvo, which slid by 4.67%, and LIC Housing Finance, which fell by 4.49%.

Viewing volumes

India’s second largest realty major Unitech was the most actively traded share with over 1.17 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by Industrial finance company IFCI (0.37 crore shares), steel maker Ispat Industries (0.36 crore shares), wind turbine major Suzlon Energy (0.34 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (0.29 crore shares).