Sensex plays well and how!

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Global signals

European stocks traded in red after erasing gains depite of Societe Generale posted the forecast beating earnings. FTSE 100 was trading lower by 0.63%.

All the major Asian indices closed in the negative territory except Shanghai Composite. Japan’s Nikkei and South Korean’ Kospi were closed today. SGX Nifty closed 12 points lower.

US stock futures signals mixed opening on the Wall Street as investors will look for earnings of Prudential Financial and CBS Corp, and employment data for April.

Indian indices

Indian indices started the day on a weak note but showed smart recovery towards the closing hours of the trading session and ended with modest losses.

The market fell on the third straight day mirroring weak global markets on worries that the debt contagion could spread to other debt-stricken southern European nations such as Spain and Portugal. Tracking overnight sell-off in the Wall street and weak opening in Asian markets, the Sensex opened 33 points down at 17104 and soon extended its losses that led the Sensex to breach the crucial 17000 level for the first time in two months to touch the day’s low of 16858. However, market recovered most of its losses in the after noon session due to positive closing in China’s Shanghai Composite, bounce back in European markets and weak rupee regaining investor’s interest in information technology stocks, which aided the Sensex to touch the day’s high of 17122. The market almost recovered 264 points from day’s low. The Sensex managed to close above 17000 levels and shut at 17088, lower by 49 points. The Nifty also managed to close above 5100 levels and ended at 5125, 24 points lower.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was negative as declining stocks outnumbered advancing stocks on third straight day. Of the 2,944 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,717 stocks declined, whereas 1,144 stocks advanced. Eighty three stocks remained unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Of the 13 sectoral indices in BSE, eight of the sectors ended in red, while five closed the day in green. The sectors that were hit the most — BSE Metal lost 1.07%, followed by the BSE Realty that declined by 1.03% and rest on the sectors dropped in the range of 0.20% to 0.78% respectively. The gaining sectors were — BSE TECk gained 0.95%, BSE IT advanced 0.92% and BSE HC up by 0.62%, while other two sector that closed in green were BSE FMCG and BSE Auto.

On gainers’ list — Godrej Consumer Product was the star stock of the day, up by 9.13%, followed by UCO Bank that was up by 6.13% and Indian Bank that rose by 6.12%. On losers’ list — REI Agro topped the chart, down by 7.14%, followed by Jaiprakash Associates that fell by 4.67% and Gujarat NRE Coke that shed 4.22%.

Viewing volumes

On sixth day on the trot, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group company Reliance Natural Resources saw highest trading with over 1.38 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by India’s second largest realtor Unitech (0.62 crore shares), infrastructure company GTL Infrastructure (0.54 crore shares), industrial finance company IFCI (0.47 crore shares) and top loser among Sensex stock Jaiprakash Associates (0.46 crore shares).