Calm positive feeling

If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, wouldn't it be a Merry Christmas? ~Don Meredith.

There’s no real jingle on the street as yet but looks like world markets are in no mood to spoil their Christmas party. At the same time, peace on earth remains a distant hope with terror alerts just being issued in cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad.



Globally, the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ seem to be temporarily set aside; the European markets have shown pretty good resilience lately despite a spate of recent downgrades for the debt-strapped eurozone nations. Assurance from China for the fiscally strained eurozone helped prop up the sentiment in Europe. Meanwhile, the US markets have been steadily pulling away amid signs of improvement in the economic landscape. Watch out for today’s revised Q3 GDP data in the US later today.

Most Asian markets are up today but Chinese stocks have slipped into red zone. Given this backdrop, we expect a higher start for India. With the Nifty crossing 6000, market participants are pondering whether it can sustain above this level for long. While the near term outlook is positive, immediate resistance is seen at around 6050. Traded volumes have tapered off and FII inflows have also slowed, which means sudden wild swings on low volumes could be expected.

Also, prices of key commodities like crude and copper have spiked. Back home, onion prices have shot through the roof. Other important food articles have also turned costlier. There has been some talk of an increase in diesel and LPG prices as well. So, inflation is likely to remain a problem area for the Indian markets and policymakers.

The markets will watch keenly what the RBI will do at its next policy meeting in late January. Latest quarterly results next month will also have some bearing on the market while the Union Budget will be a big event in February. For the time being, the sentiment will be driven by global markets.

FIIs were net sellers of Rs 347.9mn in the cash segment on Tuesday, according to the provisional NSE data. The domestic institutional institutions were net buyers at Rs 3.74bn. FIIs were net buyers of Rs 7.74bn in the F&O segment on the same day. The foreign funds were net sellers of Rs 326mn in the cash segment on Monday, according to the SEBI web site.