Hungary woes haunt markets

Today’s major news:

Oracle Financial tops the chart, the stock closes 6.63% up

Reliance Communications rallies on stake sale plan; the stock ends 4.61% higher

Mastek shoots up on acquisition buzz; the stock closes 13.60% higher



Post-market summary:



Global signals

The European shares pared losses on Monday, boosted by better-than-expected German manufacturing data, with banks recovering from earlier falls, caused by worries about the Euro zone's debt crisis.

The Asian markets tumbled on Monday, after Wall Street on Friday (June 04, 2010) closed at its lowest level since February 2010, spooked by disappointing non-farms payroll data and concerns over Hungary's debt problems. SGX Nifty closed — 96.5 points lower.

The US stock futures edged into the positive territory, but concerns remained over stability in the Euro zone and the global economic recovery.

Indian indices

After posting strong gains in the previous week, the domestic market began the week on a dismal note amid global sell off and finished the session with massive losses. The indices reversed its previous sessions’ rally, with the Sensex breaching 17000 levels and the Nifty 5100 levels.

The overall world markets were floating in the negative zone as the sentiments were hurt by the fresh fears that Europe's debt crisis could spread as Hungary scrambled to calm worries that the nation is close to defaulting on its debts doubled, with the disappointing US job data as the Dow Jones fell below the 10000 mark.

On negative cues from the global markets, the Indian equities opened the day on an extremely weak note. The bourses continued its downtrend with no hopes of respite. The markets were under pressure and witnessed huge sell-off throughout the session. Weak opening in the European markets further dragged the Indian equities. The Sensex touched the day’s low of 16686, down 431 points from the previous close. The Sensex shut below 17000, at 16781, down 336 points and the Nifty settled below 5100, at 5034, down 101 points.

Market sentiment

The market breath was extremely negative, as the declining shares outnumbered the gaining ones in the ratio of 2:1. Of the 2,865 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,909 stocks declined, whereas 869 stocks advanced. Eighty seven stocks traded unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

All the sectors closed in the red mirroring heavy sell-off across the globe. BSE Metal and BSE Realty were the worst performers that tumbled by 3.99% and 3.89% respectively. The metal stocks cracked deeply today with the frontline stocks shedding 5% each after London Metal Exchange Index (LMEX) a gauge of six metals closed at 2,843.30 on Friday (June 04, 2010), a lowest level since October 6, 2009.

The realty stocks were also under tremendous selling pressure on reports that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has decided to enquire, on its accord, if various developers are misleading the buyers, to check the rampant malpractices in the realty sector.

The other sectors traded lower in the range of 0.72-1.95%.

In ‘A’ group, the top-3 gainers were — REI Agro up by 14.76%, Oracle Financial Services Software surged by 6.63% on expectations that new minimum public shareholding norm may encourage foreign promoters to delist subsidiaries in India and Reliance Communications rose by 4.61% as the board approves 26% stake sale.

The top-3 losers — DLF down 6.19% on the news that home loan rates may rise, Sesa Goa fell 5.63% and Container Corporation Of India shed 5.32%.

Viewing volumes

India's second largest listed cellular services provider by sales — Reliance Communications witnessed highest trading with over 1.11 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by wind turbine maker — Suzlon Energy (0.40 crore shares), India's second largest realty major — Unitech (0.32 crore shares), a leading Indian group providing consumer products — Marico (0.30 crore shares) and sugar manufacturer — Shree Renuka Sugars (0.29 crore shares).