Search Now

Recommendations

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Market Close: Cautious start but its mid caps time !


The year 2008 started on flat note, the markets across Asia and Europe were closed on account of New Year. Indian indices started the New Year day with modest gains but the indices could not sustain the gains and immediately fell into negative region with marinal pull back. The first day of year was not so attractive for the investors with no triggers from global markets. Throughout the day indices traded in choppy manner, some level of profit taking was seen at mid trades. Major support to the indices came in from realty stocks as the segment index gained by 310 points. Late session was too volatile with no clear direction; indices hovered on both the regions but value buying at lows helped the indices to recover and ended on a flat note. Interest was much seen in mid and small caps. Both the indices hit all time and out performed the front line indices. Selling was seen in Technology and Capital Goods. FMCG, Power, Realty and PSU?s stocks cheer the day.

India?s largest private sector power company, Reliance Energy was the top gainer, made all time and closed up by 6.83%. The buying interest was largely due to forth coming IPO of Reliance Power where REL hold 50% stake in this company. India?s largest cigarette manufacturer ITC surged up by 3.63% and the stock hit all time, due to ITC's subsidiary Fortune Park Hotels plans to invest around Rs 130 cr in 3-4 hotels in Bangalore, Coimbatore and Kolkata.

Sensex closed up by 94 points at 20300.711. It was helped up by gains in NTPC (256.8,+6 percent), ITC (217.6,+6 percent), Rel Energy (2279,+6 percent), Tata Motors (763.05,+4 percent) and Grasim (3762.3999,+4 percent). Restricting the gains are Wipro (515.6,-3 percent), Infosys (1749.7,-3 percent), TCS (1053.65,-2 percent), RIL (2847.1001,-2 percent) and Cipla (211.65,-2 percent).

Adhunik Metals was locked on upper circuit after the news that it is looking to set up 1.1 mn tones of integrated steel plant in West Bengal and invest Rs 7,200 cr in next 4 years. They are also looking to diversify into cement and planning to set up 1 mn tones capacity. It has signed the MoU with West Bengal Government; it will be coming in the group company which does not matter for the listed company. The main trigger is that expansion plans are on curve of getting completed in next quarter itself and from next quarter Adhunik will have 4.5 lak tone capacity available. As far as power is concerned 17 MW is running and another 17 MW is coming by next quarter itself so combining will fiche about 34 mega watt of captive power plant in the steel business. Adhunik supplies specialized steel & value added steel components to industries such as Automobiles, Power, and Defense and Engineering companies. The valuation looks attractive considering its transformation to a fully integrated steel player. We believe primarily growth will be driven by higher realization as a result of rolled products ( rolled from outside rolling companies, as its own rolling mill is likely to come in FY08.

UCO Bank's shares surged on news of merger. The Kolkata based public sector bank is looking at merging itself with another bank in the next three months to boost its business. UCO Bank plans to merge with a smaller or a similar sized bank by March to attain size. It won?t acquire any banks, but will merge with some other banks in three months. UCO Bank officials could not be immediately reached for comment. The merger will boost the banks total business size to 2 trillion rupees from 1.23 trillion rupees as per the source news. The merger certainly helps to grow inorganically which helps to bring fast growth to the business. This also helps to face completion from private and MNC banks which are growing faster than PSU banks. On hopes of merger the stock closed up by 20%.

Technically Speaking: It was choppy session for complete day before closing, Sensex traded on both the sides with no clear direction and ended with small gains. Sensex touched intraday high of 20,395 and low of 20,220. Overall breadth was in favor of Advances, where the Advances stood at 2415, while Declines at 447. The turnover was pretty good at Rs 6021 cr.