Market Close: Debacle..Made is US !

Market across the globe had a blood bath. Subprime worries meltdown the market. Hang Seng closed down by 703 points, Nikkei ended down by 327 points. India was no different. The indices opened with huge gap and continued the southbound trend. This was the biggest single day fall since May 18th 2006. No counter was left untouched from the fall. Sentiments have hit investors badly across the globe and confidence seems to be missing. Metals, Realty, Banking and Capital Goods were the worst hit.

We believe that the market is all about greed and fear. There was greed couple of weeks back and now there is fear stalking on the street. There are some who believe that this time its different but really.. even we dont know and expect only time to tell us that..But for now market seem downward biased.

Sensex closed down by 643 points at 14358.21. Weighing on the Sensex are losses in TISCO (575.35,-10 percent), Bharti Tele (800.85,-7 percent), SBI (1521.6,-6 percent), Hindalco (145.3,-6 percent) and RCVL (495.4,-6 percent). Losses are restricted by gains in .

To curb the increasing cement prices?the Government mandated Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation (MMTC) to import cement without Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) certification. The exemption to import cement (by MMTC) without standard mark certification will be valid for 150 days from the date of recording of applications or till the grant of regular license by BIS to the manufacturer. The Government had earlier abolished import duty and withdrew countervailing and special additional customs duties to facilitate imports and control cement prices. Now everyone eyes Pakistan for imports. It has capacity of around 34 mn tonnes per annum and is set to increase it to 40 mn tones pa by April 2008. The prices in north has been reduced by around Rs 1 to Rs 2 per bag. The major players in north India are Shree Cement, Gujarat Ambuja, Binani Cement, JK Lakshmi and ACC. Though it does not impact directly, its sentiment which impacts stock and thats likely to be negative. However import from Pakistan will be very less. The companies in south will be safe and sound. The major players in south are India Cement, Madras Cement and Kesoram.

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Posco, Korea's steel company signed a MoU for co-operating in a wide range of strategic business and commercial interest areas. As per the MoU the partners will share info for corporate strategy planning, share and exchange of engineers, technicians and know-how and expertise in the areas of development of mines and business practices and joint usage of each other's existing marketing and warehousing network, co-ordination in procurement of coking coal, nickel and ferro-alloys and engagement of transportation vessels. The stock was up ahead of this announcement but really the key now is whether steel prices will remain strong. With a weak US economy, its unlikely that steel prices will stay where they are. Better to take profits here.

Technically Speaking: It was a bear session for the whole day. Sensex opened in a deep gap of 500 points and selling pressure was witnessed through out the day. Sensex touched intraday high of 14585 and low of 14345. Market turnover was good at Rs 5291 cr. Overall breadth was in favor of Declines, whereas the Advances to Declines ratio stood at 1:2. Sensex is clearly heading for 13870, pullbacks upto 14600 - 14700 are quite possible.