Close: this is what you call correction in a Bull market !

Market opened positive on the back of positive global cues. Heavy profit booking saw the index slip in the negative territory but buying in technology stocks helped the index back into positive to close there. Markets were volatile mood through out the day. Heavyweights like TCS, Infosys and ONGC aided the rise in the index. Auto, Pharma and Engineering stocks were out of favor. Selling was seen in Mid cap as well as Small cap. Asian markets ended positive while the European indices were trading in red.

Sensex closed up by 26 points at 13425.5. It was helped up by gains in TCS (1106.25,+3 percent), Infosys (2209.75,+2 percent), ICICI Bk (857.45,+2 percent), Satyam (431.5,+1 percent) and ONGC (880.2,+1 percent). Restricting the gains are HLL (247.95,-2 percent), NTPC (135.4,-2 percent), Hindalco (178.6,-2 percent), TISCO (490.95,-1 percent) and Grasim (2673.6001,-1 percent).

The Pune based Finolex group is eyeing presence in the Rs 50,000-crore domestic insurance industry. Investment would be about Rs 1,000 crore spread across 8-10 years. The PP Chabbria-promoted group has Finolex Industries and Finolex Cables under its fold. While Finolex Industries is an integrated petrochemicals player, Finolex Cables makes products for the telecom sector. There are currently 15 players in the Indian insurance industry. Indian insurance sector recently witnessed the entry of Bharti and Anil Ambani?s reliance ADAG. Other players like the Kirloskars and Bharat Forge have also reportedly expressed interest in insurance. Foreign equity stake in domestic insurance companies is capped at 26%. India?s insurance market is estimated to grow at an annual rate of 15% to 20%. Only 20% of the total insurable population of India is covered by life insurance. Sins are done only in bullish times and that?s exactly what we are seeing in terms of unrelated diversifications. It adds to the risk but bullish markets tend gives this a thumbs up encouraging promoters to take higher risks. Insurance as a business is still maturing and players such as ICICI Prudential, HDFC Standard Life, Birla Sunlife, Bajaj Allianz have been doing fairly ok. Finolex Industry closed marginally up.

The Television Eighteen (TV 18) Group has acquired the assets and staff of Crisil MarketWire (CMW) from rating agency Crisil. The transfer will be effective January 1, 2007. The move follows the earlier decision of TVI8 and Crisil to jointly develop a framework for business collaboration. The CMW business will be rechristened as NewsWire18 and will be a group company of the TV 18 Group. This transaction and the news and data platform will help TV18 serve the institutional segment. The stock closed down 6.5% on profit taking. Certainly there were some who knew about this coming. Crisil closed up.

Technically Speaking: Market was in volatile mood as it started positive then slid in the negative territory and then rallied back to end in green. Volumes were good at 5139 cr. However, the breadth has been in favor of Decliners as they were 1.75 times the Advances. The Resistance was at 13535 - 13477 while Support at 13371 -13323 levels.

Performance was superb through out the day. DTP sell calls on Siemens, Dr. Reddy and Nifty Fut hit the target while call on Reliance dissapointed. A quickies call on Emkay Shares which was booked partially was closed as it hit the revised stoploss but overall decent gains made.