Events would decide the market’s move next week

The market closed flat with a positive bias today on buying support in select blue-chips in the last hour. The 20-day moving average on the Nifty was 4,709. At present the index is in an indecisive phase. The benchmark made a lower low today, however, towards the end of the day it made higher high on a volume of 53.95 crore shares on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The market opened in the negative, taking cues from the disappointing start by the Asian pack on unending European woes and a weak euro. Concerns about lower quarterly earnings by corporates also weighed on the investors. The Nifty opened 26 points down at 4,724 and the Sensex lost 68 points to 15,789 at the opening bell. Auto, consumer durables, fast moving consumer goods, and IT stocks faced intense selling pressure in early trade.

Shares of Kingfisher Airlines plunged over 11% in morning trade after State Bank of India (SBI), the company’s largest creditor, declared its exposure to the air carrier a non-performing asset. After a weak start, the stock fell further to an early low of Rs18.15, down 11.24% over the previous close, on the NSE. On the BSE, the stock fell 10.75% to an early low of Rs18.25.

The sell-off led the indices to the day’s low in mid-morning trade. At the lows, the Nifty fell to 4,687 and the Sensex went back to 15,665. The market was range-bound in till around 2.15pm, after which select buying pushed the benchmarks into the positive. The indices hit their highs in the last hour with the Nifty rising to 4,795 and the Sensex going up to 16,001.

However, choppiness in late trade saw the indices coming off the highs and closing flat for the second day. The Nifty closed four points higher at 4,754 and the Sensex settled at 15,868, up 11 points.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was in favour of the declining stocks at 688:717.

In the broader market space, the BSE Mid-cap index shed 0.09% while the BSE Small-cap index rose 0.02%.

The sectoral gainers were BSE Oil & Gas (up 1.06%); BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods (up 0.87%); BSE Bankex (up 0.49%) and BSE Healthcare (up 0.06%). The top losers were BSE Capital Goods (down 1%); BSE Realty (down 0.87%); BSE TECk (down 0.78%); BSE Power (down 0.69%) and BSE Consumer Durables (down 0.60%).

Reliance Industries (up 2.52%) was the top gainer on the Sensex today. It was followed by HDFC Bank (up 2.25%); Hindalco Industries (up 2.02%); Maruti Suzuki (up 1.76%) and ITC (up 1.23%). The key losers were Hero MotoCorp (down 5.12%); Jaiprakash Associates (down 4.58%); Bharti Airtel (down 4.11%); Jindal Steel (down 3%) and DLF (down 2.65%).

The top performers on the Nifty were Reliance Communications (up 5.43%); Reliance Infrastructure (up 4.31%); BPCL (up 4.17%); Reliance Power (up 3.81%) and HDFC Bank (up 2.67%). Hero MotoCorp (down 5.56%); JP Associates (down 4.75%); Bharti Airtel (down 4.01%); Jindal Steel (down 3.23%) and DLF (down 2.97%) led the losers.

Markets in Asia closed lower on European worries and ahead of monthly jobs data from the US, slated to be announced later today.  Chinese stocks gained on speculations that the government will ease lending restrictions. The Seoul Composite index fell over 2% in intraday trade on rumours of a possible downgrade of France’s sovereign rating.

The Hang Seng declined 1.17%; the Jakarta Composite fell 0.94%; the KLSE Composite shed 0.02%; the Nikkei 225 tanked 1.16%; the Seoul Composite dropped 1.11% and the Taiwan Weighted shed 0.15%. Bucking the trend, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.70% and the Straits Times rose 0.09%. At the time of writing, the key European markets were trading with gains of 0.25% to 0.63% and US stocks futures were trading higher.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of stocks totalling Rs381.42 crore on Thursday while domestic institutional investors were net sellers of shares amounting to Rs289.21 crore.

Suzlon Energy arm REpower has won an order from a wind farm in Portugal. The company will supply 11 turbines to the wind farm in Central Portugal that will generate 22 MW power. The project is scheduled to be commissioned in the third quarter of fiscal 2013, Suzlon Energy said on Friday. The stock gained 0.27% to close at Rs18.30 on the NSE.

Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular today approached telecom tribunal TDSAT against the government’s move to impose additional liquidated damages on it for not meeting roll-out obligations in two circles. Idea said the additional penalty has been imposed for the Haryana and Maharashtra circles, for which the main penalty has already been set aside by TDSAT on 5th December. The stock ended flat at Rs82.45 on the NSE.

Kolkata-based Srei Infrastructure Finance plans to raise around Rs1,400 crore of debt in the current quarter to support its growth, a top company official said. The NBFC engaged in financing infrastructure projects had decided to mop up Rs300 crore through a bond issue which opened for subscription on 31st December and will close on 3st January. The stock declined 2.80% to close at Rs26 on the NSE.