Market ends choppy session lower

Major headlines

Punj Lloyd wins Rs5.39 billion order from GAIL

Local car sales up 30%

Larsen & Toubro bags Rs1,585 crore orders



Indian indices

The domestic market extended its previous session’s loss in today’s trade. Domestic indices slid in line with weak global indices. Stocks fell, with the benchmark Nifty snapping five weeks’ gains. However, the index managed to hold the 6100 level, led by Reliance Industries, State Bank of India, Wipro, Infosys Technologies, Hindalco Industries, DLF, Reliance Communications and Maruti Suzuki along with healthcare companies' shares.

Metal, private financial, auto, cement and power companies' shares along with Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Bharti Airtel, Bharat Heavy Electricals and Tata Consultancy Services witnessed selling pressure.

The Sensex started the session 18 points higher at 20297. The index soon hit its day’s high of 20409 in initial trade. However it could not sustain the gains and slipped from that level, to plunge into negative territory. After dilly dallying in the positive and negative zone for some time, the Sensex hit the day’s low of 20146 in afternoon trade. There was some recovery from the lows in the last hour of trade owing to buying in index heavyweights. At the finishing line, the Sensex shut shop at 20250, 65 points lower while the Nifty closed at 6103, down by 16 points.

Bond and Rupee update: India's ten-year bond yields were little change before a scheduled auction of Rs110 billion ($ 2.5 billion) of government debt. The yield on the 7.8 % note due 2020 was at 7.95% as of today. The yields are at three weeks high levels. The Indian Rupee fell the most in a month on concerns importers will step up dollar purchase. and also due to central bank’s intervention.

Market Outlook: Tonight, we have arguably the most important US non-farm payroll data coupled with US unemployment data for the month of September. Also the market will follow the wholesale inventories data.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was negative as falling stocks outpaced the advancing ones. Out of the 3,066 stocks traded on BSE, 1,825 declined while 1,120 advanced. 121 stocks traded unchanged.

Sectoral and stock screening

Out the 13 sectoral indices — nine sectors closed in the red, while four closed in the green. Metal, auto and consumer durables (CD) were the most hit sectors. The BSE Metal index was down by 1.49%, the BSE Auto index fell by 1.30% and BSE CD index slipped 1.08%. The health care (HC) sector performed positive today with the BSE HC index up 0.82%. The BSE IT index representing information technology stocks was another gainer putting on 0.37%.

Among 'A' group stocks, the top three gainers were — Indiabulls Financial Services (up 6.74%), IFCI (up 5.48%) and Hindustan Construction Company (up 2.99%).

The top three losers in the ‘A’ group were — Tata Steel (down 3.48%), Crompton Greaves (down 3.42%) and Indian Bank (down 3.29%).

Viewing volumes

IFCI was the most traded stock, with over 2.30 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by Indiabulls Financial Services (0.69 crore shares), Pipavav Shipyard (0.35 crore shares), Tata Steel (0.33 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (0.31 crore shares).

Global signals

European indices were trading in the negative territory as investors remained cautious ahead of the US jobs data, which could determine whether more stimulus measures could be introduced to spur the flagging recovery.

Major Asian indices closed in the red except Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite.

The US stock index futures point a mixed opening on the Wall Street tonight, as investors stayed cautious ahead of a crucial job report which could determine whether more money supply measures will be introduced to spur the flagging economy.