Monday’s move may decide further direction

In our yesterday’s closing report, we had suggested that Sensex and Nifty may give up some gains. The market snapped its three-day winning streak and closed lower on the last day of the holiday-shortened week on profit booking and weak global cues. The current upmove, which began on 30 March 2012, has lost its strength. However, the Nifty registered a weekly gain of 0.52% and the Sensex rose 0.47%, which is line with our study on the market performance in a truncated week. Monday’s move may decide further direction. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a lower volume of 60.99 crore shares.

The market opened lower on unsupportive global cues as minutes of the Federal Reserve March meeting was silent on another round of stimulus to boost the economy. The comments led US stocks lower in overnight trade. Markets in Asia were down following the US central bank’s remarks. The Nifty opened 30 points lower at 5,329 and the Sensex resumed trade at 17,553, down 44 points from its previous close.

The market continued to drift lower in subsequent trade as investors took the opportunity to take profits off the table after three straight days of gains. Remaining in the negative, the indices hit their intraday highs in the first hour itself with the Nifty touching 5,338 and the Sensex rising to 17,553.

An increase in selling pressure, as traders refrained from taking long positions due to the truncated trading week, saw the market drift further southwards as trade progressed. The market fell to the day’s low a little after 1.00pm. At the lows, the Nifty was at 5,305 and the Sensex dropped to 17,437.

Huge cuts in the key European indices in early trades added to woes in the local market in the post-noon session. A marginal recovery ensured the market close off the day’s lows. The Nifty declined 36 points to settle at 5,323 and the Sensex lost 111 points to end the week at 17,486.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was in favour of the declining stocks at 853:932.

The broader indices settled mixed as the BSE Mid-cap index shed 0.03% and the BSE Small-cap index gained 0.40%.

With the exception of the BSE Power (up 0.42%) and BSE Consumer Durables (up 0.27%, all other sectoral indices settled lower. BSE Realty (down 1.35%); BSE Metal (down 1.02%); BSE Bankex (down 0.75%); BSE Oil & Gas (down 0.60%) and BSE Auto (down 0.45%) were the main losers.

The Sensex toppers were BHEL (up 3.54%); Hindalco Industries (up 0.99%); Maruti Suzuki (up 0.75%); ONGC (up 0.29%) and NTPC (up 0.24%). Jindal Steel (down 3.15%); GAIL India (down 2.80%); Bharti Airtel, Sterlite Industries (down 1.99% each) and ICICI Bank (down 1.88%) were the major losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were BHEL (up 3.60%); Ranbaxy Laboratories (up 3.25%); Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (up 1.43%); Cairn India (up 0.94%) and IDFC (up 0.87%). Jindal Steel (down 3.44%); GAIL India (down 3.25%); Jaiprakash Associates (down 2.26%); Bharti Airtel (down 1.94%) and Reliance Infrastructure (down 1.87%) led the index lower.

Markets in Asia settled lower as the US Federal Reserve refrained from announcing any new stimulus on signs of a slow growth in the US economy. Fresh concerns from Europe also weighed on the sentiments.

The Jakarta Composite fell 1.93%; the KLSE Composite declined 0.46%; the Nikkei 225 tumbled 2.29%; the Straits Times dropped 0.99% and the Seoul Composite settled 1.50% lower. Markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were closed for local holidays. At the time of writing, the major European indices wee down over 1% and the US stocks futures were trading with losses.

Back home, institutional investors—foreign as well as domestic—were net buyers of equities on Tuesday. While foreign institutional investors pumped in Rs332.47 crore, domestic institutional investors invested Rs200.28 crore.

Global private equity major Warburg Pincus offloaded 3.6% stake in private lender, Kotak Mahindra Bank, in a deal which was valued at around Rs1,400 crore. The shares were sold at an average price of Rs530 a share, which is much lower than close price of Rs556.00 at the NSE on Monday, 2nd April. This is the second time in as many months that Warburg has sold shares of the bank. The bank stock declined 1.52% to Rs550.95 on the NSE.

Sharon Bio-Medicine’s Chiral active pharma ingredients (API) project has received a subsidy/financial assistance of Rs6.90 crore from the ministry of science and technology, New Delhi, Government of India. Chiral API technology will not only reduce cost of the API manufactured by Sharon but will also be environmental friendly with less of the effluents coming out from the API manufactured products. The stock gained 2.23% to close at Rs368.90 on the NSE.

Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals has received an approval from the Madras High Court for the proposed scheme of amalgamation for merger of Orchid Research Laboratories with the company. The stock rose 0.45% to close at Rs189.50 on the NSE.