First weekly fall for markets in 2012

The Indian markets broke seven-week winning trend on profit booking. The Sensex fell 2% and the Nifty declined 2.4%.

Headlines for the week

Kingfisher Airlines faces tough times
Citigroup sells HDFC stake
Econet seeks $3.1 billion damages from Bharti Airtel
India’s GDP to grow at 7.1% in FY12: Rangarajan
Jan consumer price inflation at 7.65%
ABB Q4 net profit soars over 9-fold
Ranbaxy Q4 consolidated net loss at Rs2982.76 crore



Indian indices
The Indian markets turned bearish in the holiday-shortened week after rising for the last seven weeks. Profit booking emerged after recent gains as concerns mounted over the state of the global economy, including rising oil prices. India’s widening fiscal deficit also added to the gloom.
Volatility was high owing to F&O expiry for February 2012 this week. There was also a lot of uncertainty ahead of events like the upcoming budget.
It was first weekly fall for markets in 2012. The Sensex closed the week at 17924, down 366 points or 2% and the Nifty ended at 5429 down 135 points or 2.4%.
Sectoral and stock screening:

Among the 13 sectoral indices, ten closed the week on a negative note. The only three gainers — BSE FMCG rose by 0.89%, BSE IT surged by 0.67 and BSE Oil & Gas up by 0.09%. Top three losers — BSE Realty fell by 7.27%, BSE Bankex declined by 5.24% and BSE CG slipped by 4.91%.

Coming to 'A' group stocks, top three gainers of the week – Oracle Financial Services Software jumped by 18.89%, Godrej Industries advanced by 16.44% and Videocon Industries rose by 8.22%. Top three losers of the week – Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) tumbled by 17.37%, GMR Infrastructure fell by 16.36% and IRB Infrastructure Developers declined by 16.01%.
FII/MF activity
The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their buying activity and purchased Indian stocks worth a net of Rs2838 crore, while the domestic investors were net sellers of Indian stocks to the tune of Rs1240 crore during the week till February 23, 2012.

Global indices:
All the global indices closed the week higher except Hang Seng down by 0.39% and the Sensex down by 2%. Top three gainers — Shanghai Composite was the best performer of the week surging by 3.50%, Nikkei rose by 2.80% and CAC40 up by 0.80%.
Outlook
Auto and cement shares will be in focus as companies from these two sectors will start releasing monthly sales data for February 2012 from Thursday (March 01, 2012). HSBC's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), which indicates the health of the manufacturing sector will be out on Thursday. Budget expectations may markets volatile in the near term.
The stock exchanges are holding a special 1-1/2 hour trading session on Saturday (March 03, 2012), as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is testing its Disaster Recover Site (DR). Trading will begin at 11:15 IST and conclude at 12:45 IST on that day.