To reverse the downtrend, the Nifty must close above 5,345 as a first step

The market closed lower on concerns that policy reforms would suffer a setback on the Congress party’s poor performance in the state elections, for which counting begins tomorrow. In Friday’s closing report we had mentioned that if the Nifty ends below 5,300 it may fall to 5,270. Today the Nifty closed at 5,280. If the index decisively breaks 5,266 we may see it moving further down. To reverse the downtrend, the benchmark has to close above 5,345 and then above 5,415. The NSE saw a volume of 66.38 crore shares, which is much below its 10-day average volume.
 
The market opened lower as the bourses in Asia were lower in morning trade as China lowered its growth estimate for 2012 at 7.5%. Uneasiness ahead of the announcement of the election results for five states that went to the polls recently also played on investors’ minds. The Nifty opened 16 points lower at 5,343 and the Sensex resumed trade at 17,598, a cut of 39 points over its previous close. The opening figure of the Sensex was its intraday high while the Nifty touched its high a short while later at 5,345.

Selling pressure in metal, banking, capital goods, consumer durables, realty and oil & gas sectors continued to keep the market in the negative. The indices witnessed a minor recovery at around 1.30pm, despite the European markets opening lower. But the gains lacked strength as the market drifted further southwards soon after.

The benchmarks touched their intraday lows in the last hour with the Nifty falling to 5,266 and the Sensex going back to 17,312. The market closed marginally above the day’s lows with the Nifty falling 79 points to 5,280 and the Sensex dropping 274 points to settle at 17,363.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was almost balanced at 504:1203.

Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index declined 1.39% and the BSE Small-cap index fell 0.95%.

With the exception of the BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods index (up 0.26%), all other sectoral gauges settled in the negative. The top losers were BSE Realty (down 3.26%); BSE Metal (down 3.06%); BSE Bankex (down 2.62%); BSE Capital Goods (down 2.47%) and BSE Consumer Durables (down 1.78%).

Tata Motors (up 2.09%); Wipro (up 1.38%); ITC (up 1.17%); ONGC (up 0.89%) and Cipla (up 0.13%) were the top Sensex gainers. The key laggards were DLF (down 5.44%); Hindalco Industries (down 5.35%); GAIL India (down 4.88%); Jindal Steel (down 3.99%) and ICICI Bank (down 3.88%).

The Nifty leaders were Reliance Infrastructure (up 5.02%); Reliance Power (up 4.93%); Tata Motors (up 2.43%); ITC (up 1.37%) and Wipro (up 1.33%). Jaiprakash Associates (down 5.71%); Hindalco Industries (down 5.55%); DLF (down 5%); GAIL (down 4.98%) and SAIL (down 4.93%) settled at the bottom of the index.

Markets in Asia settled lower following a lower 7.5% growth forecast by Chinese authorities for 2012. Analysts said that the growth estimate is the lowest in the past eight years, which is expected to impact fund raising.

The Shanghai Composite declined 0.64%; the Hang Seng dropped 1.38%; the Jakarta Composite fell 0.50%; the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.80%; the Straits Times shed 0.06%; the Seoul Composite was down 0.91% and the Taiwan Weighted tanked 1.35%. Bucking the trend, the KLSE Composite gained 0.34%. At the time of writing, the key European markets were down between 0.54% and 1.25% and the US stock futures were in the red.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares totalling Rs578.65 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities amounting to Rs70.48 crore.

Petron Engineering Construction has received an order from GAIL (India) for gas cracking unit at Pata Petrochemical Complex - II project. The order is valued at approximately Rs192.34 crore. The stock rose 0.65% to close at Rs265 on the NSE.

Wind turbine major Suzlon’s subsidiary SEFORGE today secured a contract worth Rs367 crore for supplying equipment for wind towers over a period of three years, the company said. The Rs367 crore contract covers supply of flanges (used for wind turbine towers) for projects in India and international markets. However, Suzlon did not divulge the name of the company with which the agreement was signed. The stock tanked 3.65% to close at Rs27.70 on the NSE.

Siemens has bagged an order worth around Rs130 crore from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) to modernize the state’s electricity distribution management system. Apart from improving reliability of the distribution network and minimizing distribution losses, the solution is a major step towards Smart Grid. The project is scheduled to be commissioned by June 2013. The stock settled at Rs765 on the NSE, down 3.46% from its previous close.