Market Close: China weigh over India !

Extremly choppy and volatile sessions continued through out the day. Global cues were not much supportive as China raised securities trading duty by three times to 0.3%. This fueled the Asian markets to trade weak and end in red. Shanghai Composite ended down by 6.5%. This is F&O expiry week and China's excuse was good reason for market to see profit booking. Selling pressure was seen across the board except selective stocks in Engineering and Real estate. IT stocks continued its downward trend as Rupee maintained its strength against Dollar. Even Mid and Small caps also followed frontline indices.

Sensex closed down by 114 points at 14394. It was helped up by gains in L&T (1979,+6.60 percent), Hero Honda (696,+1.49 percent), HDFC (1830,+0.91 percent), Ambuja Cement (115.20,+0.35 percent) and Bajaj Auto (2200,+0.34 percent). Restricting the gains are HDFC Bank (1100,-3.96 percent), R Com (501,-3.88 percent), REL (534,-3.84 percent), BHEL (2759,-3.4 percent) and Hindalco (140.35,-2.87 percent).

IT stocks ended in a weak note for the day. According to a leading business daily, IT majors like TCS, Infosys and I-flex are now targeting the Islamic banking space by offering new software solutions. The estimated US$ 300 bn assets under Islamic banking offers a huge potential, which Indian IT companies are now planning to tap through specially designed software solutions. Islamic banking is based on the 'Shariah' law which does not permit interest based transactions. Infosys has tied up with the Arab National Bank in Saudi Arabia and is in advanced prospects with various banks in the middle east and south east Asia. On the other hand, TCS invested about Rs 1600 cr last year on its Islamic Banking IT solution called TCS BáNCS which covers financial and investment products. TCS's clients are based in UAE, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. I-flex too has a presence in the middle-east. Some of the banks that I-flex supplies solutions to include the Shamil Bank in Bahrain and Dubai Islamic Bank. As of now, banks in India do not offer Islamic banking products as the RBI is yet to give them a green signal to do so. TCS ended by loosing 1.58%, Infosys closed down by 2.5% and I-flex closed down by 1.77%.

Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro ended up by 6.60%. It reported 50% rise in net profit in to Rs 701 crore in Q4 March 2007 from Rs 467 crore in Q4 March 2006. Sales rose 35.01% to Rs 6248.24 crore in the Q4 March 2007 as against Rs 4627.87 crore in previous Q4 March 2006. The net profit rose 38.62% to Rs 1403 crore in the year ended March 2007 as against Rs 1012 crore in FY 2006. Sales rose 19.31% to Rs 17579 crore (Rs 14733.85 crore). The company's order book stands at over Rs 35000 crore. Engineering stocks ended in mixed note. While Punj Lloyd closed up by 6%, Thermax ended up by 4%, ABB ended up by 2% and BHEL ended down by 3%.

Technically Speaking: It was a volatile session for the whole day. Sensex touched intraday high of 14576 and low of 14379. Resistance lies at 14520, 14646 and Support lies at 14323 and 14252 levels. Market turnover was pretty good at Rs 4737 cr. Overall breadth was in favor of Declines, where the Advances stood at 1006, Declines stood at 1608. 14520 is an improtant level to be watched out...If this level is breached we may see 14800.