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Monday, January 14, 2008

Market ends lower


The market ended the volatile session in the red as index heavyweights ICICI Bank and Infosys Technologies drifted lower. Reliance Industries moved higher. NTPC soared. Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki and Wipro slumped. Oil & gas shares were in demand. IT and consumer durables stocks slipped. The market breadth was positive. 19 out of 30 stocks from the Sensex pack were in red.

Asian markets, which opened before Indian markets, were mixed. European markets, which were mixed in early trades, were in green.

The market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday, 11 January 2008, gave its go-ahead for the launch of long duration options on the popular Sensex and Nifty indices with tenures up to three years. At present maximum duration for any futures & options contract is three months.

The 30-share BSE Sensex provisionally ended down 126.07 points or 0.61% to 20701.38. Sensex hit a low of 20,661.90 in the mid-afternoon trade. At day’s low, Sensex shed 165.55 points. Sensex hit a high of 20,985.62 at the onset of the trading session. At the day's high, Sensex rose 158.17 points.

The broader CNX S&P Nifty provisionally ended up 13.65 points or 0.22% at 6213.75.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.04% to 9,537.05. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.38% to 12,869.30.

The market breadth was positive. On BSE, 1553 shares advanced as compared to 1301 that declined. 24 remained unchanged.

The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 7033 crore as compared to Rs 8,018.66 on Friday, 11 January 2008.

India's largest private sector firm by market capitalization and oil refiner Reliance Industries (RIL) rose 3.03% to Rs 3223 on reports the company is venturing into synthetic fuels through a $6-8 billion project that will turn coal into oil. Globally, this is called coal-to-liquid, or CTL, technology. RIL aims to produce about 80,000 barrels of oil per day through the process. The Rs 30,000 crore project will consume about 30 million tonnes of coal annually, reports suggest.

Another reason for the upmove in the stock was expectations of strong Q3 December 2007 results. RIL unveils Q3 results on Thursday, 17 December 2007.

India’s largest private sector bank by assets ICICI Bank fell 3.47% to Rs 1390. The stock had surged last week on reports it plans to list four for its subsidiaries starting with its securities arm, ICICI Securities.

India's second largest software exporter by sales Infosys Technologies fell 3.15% to Rs 1530. Infosys Technologies on Friday, 11 January 2008, reported 11.9% growth in consolidated net profit as per Indian GAAP to Rs 1231 crore on 4% rise in sales to Rs 4271 crore in Q3 December 2007 over Q2 September 2007.

NTPC soared 5.33% to Rs 286.80, Bharat Heavy Electricals moved up 1.64% to Rs 2475, HDFC Bank gained 1.46% to Rs 1788, State bank of India rose 1.14% to Rs 2464.95 and Ranbaxy Laboratories gained 0.92% to Rs 399.

Bharti Airtel slumped 6.54% to Rs 905.50, Wipro slipped 5.36% to Rs 459.90, Maruti Suzuki skid 3.19% to Rs 870, Housing Finance Development Corporation (HDFC) fell 2.95% to Rs 2970.50 and TCS gave away 2.73% to Rs 962.05.

In Europe, France’s CAC 40 was up 0.16%, UK’s FTSE 100 was up 0.10% and Germany’s DAX was up 0.22%.

Asian markets were trading mixed today, 14 January 2008. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 1.48%, South Korea's Seoul Composite was down 0.92% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.93%. However, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted was up 1.79% and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.24%.

US stocks declined sharply on Friday, 11 January 2008 on a warning by American Express of mounting credit-card defaults and a slowdown in consumer spending. Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 246.79 points, or 1.92%, at 12,606.30, Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 19.31 points, or 1.36%, to 1,401.02 and Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 48.58 points, or 1.95%, at 2,439.94.