Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense - Gertrude Stein.
In a world of indices hitting new 52-week highs, individual stock prices are changing in a narrow range. In the immediate term, anything and everything can rattle the stock prices; be it a downgrade, a change in weather or perhaps even a comment from Greece or Portugal. Focus on the company’s business instead and the broader environment.
Markets in the US and Europe posted gains, with the Dow hitting a new 18-month high. Concerns over sovereign default have ebbed with Greece securing EU commitment on financial aid and Dubai getting a fresh bailout.
FII inflows have held up pretty strong post the Union Budget. Monday was no exception. Local funds though have been a bit more cautious. Among the key concerns since Budget has been the tepid show put up by the broader market. The same was on display on Monday as well. This does stick out like a sore thumb and calls for some caution.
With NAV dressing done with for the year, we see a flat to sedate start and less upside given the mixed trend across Asia. The market appears to be fairly valued, especially the large caps. So, chances of a major rally from here onwards look slim though the medium-term and long-term outlook remains upbeat. Near-term market action will be mostly stock specific, rangebound and choppy.
Shares of IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd. will be listed today.
Hero Honda will hold a board meeting to announce a special interim dividend. M&M will consider a demerger of the Agri Inputs Business of its subsidiary, Mahindra Shubhlabh Services Ltd., a subsidiary (MSSL) into the company.
Abbott India and Plethico Pharma will declare their results. SpiceJet and Sun TV will hog the limelight amid news reports suggesting a possible deal brewing between the promoters of the two companies.
FIIs were net buyers in the cash segment on Monday at Rs10.63bn on a provisional basis. Local funds were net sellers of Rs2.7bn, according to figures published on the NSE's web site. In the F&O segment, the foreign funds were net sellers of Rs638.5mn. On Friday, FIIs were net buyers of Rs10.79bn in the cash segment, as per the SEBI web site.
In global markets, the euro managed to extend gains against the US dollar from last week. Hopes that the eurozone’s sovereign debt woes are no longer a big threat to the region’s fragile growth help support the single currency and boosted risk appetite worldwide.
A weaker dollar meant a positive session for energy and commodities. Gold futures end higher on dollar weakness, improved market sentiment, and expectations that Chinese demand for gold could double in the next 10 years.
The Indian benchmark indices closed at new 52-week high with the NSE Nifty shutting shop above the 5300 levels for the first time since June 2008. The Nifty went on to hit an intra-day high of 5,329 led by the banking, FMCG and the Capital Goods stocks. However, the IT stocks were the major laggards as the Rupee appreciated to fresh 18-months high. Heavyweights like Infosys and TCS were under pressure. Finally, the BSE Sensex advanced 67 points to end at 17,711 and NSE Nifty added 21 points to close at 5,303.
However, market breadth was yet again in favour of the bears, out of total 2951 stocks, 1,845 declined against 1,029 advances while 77 stocks remained unchanged.
In Asia, the Nikkei in Japan ended flat, Australia's S&P/ASX also ended almost unchanged. Shanghai SE Composite rose 2% and Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 0.8%.
In Europe, stocks were trading with a positive bias. The DAX in Germany was up 0.8%, the CAC 40 index in France was up 0.5% and the FTSE in the UK was up 0.2%.
Coming back to India, among the BSE sectoral indices, the BSE Consumer Durables index was top gainer, the index rose 2%, followed by BSE FMCG index up 1% and Bank index up 0.8%.
Among the top losers were, BSE IT index was down 1.8% and the BSE Teck index was down 1.3%.
Outside the frontline indices, the big gainers in the broader market were LIC Housing Fin, Glenmark, Nestle, Bajaj Holdings and Mumdra Port. On the other hand, losers included NMDC, Torrent Power, Hindustan Copper and Jai Corp.
Shares of L&T gained by 1.5% to Rs1659 after the company announced that it secured a major order valued at Rs14bn from Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) for a 4.17 MMTPA FCC (Fluidized Catalytic Cracker) Reactor Regenerator Project of a grassroots fuel refinery at Paradip, Orissa.
Colgate Palmolive (India) currently holds 75% of the share capital of CC Health Care Products Pvt. Ltd, engaged in the manufacture of toothpowder at Hyderabad. The Company has acquired the remaining 25% of share capital from the local shareholders at an aggregate price of Rs. 69.07 lacs and accordingly CC Health Care Products Ltd has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company effective March 29, 2010
The stock fell 2.2% to end at Rs681. The scrip opened at Rs706 it touched an intra-day high of Rs718 and a low of Rs680 and recorded volumes of over 54,000 shares on BSE.
Hindustan Unilever announced that pursuant to the terms of agreement entered between Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL) and Cap Gemini 5A in October 2006, HUL has divested its remaining 49% stake in Capgemini Business Services (India) Ltd. (CGBSL) [formerly Unilever India Shared Services Ltd. (UISSL)].
The stock ended higher by 1% to Rs239. The scrip opened at Rs238 it touched an intra-day high of Rs240 and a low of Rs237 and recorded volumes of over 0.2mn shares on BSE.
Shares of Ranbaxy Laboratories advanced by 1% to end at Rs481 after the company announced that it would develop an undisclosed biosimilar therapeutic along with Pfenex Inc. in the Pfenex Expression Technology platform, a Pseudomonas-based recombinant protein expression technology.
The scrip opened at Rs477 it touched an intra-day high of Rs486 and a low of Rs474 and recorded volumes of over 0.32mn shares on BSE.
DQ Entertainment (International) Limited, a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment group registered an animated debut on Dalal-Street. The stock started trading at Rs135 per share as against the issue price of Rs80 per share. Finally, the stock ended at Rs108 translating into a premium of 35%.
The company is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment. It has the largest animation production capacity for Television, Feature Films, Home Video, Online Game Art, mobile and next generation console games across all formats as well as Visual Effects.
DQ Ent’s IPO was subscribed ~86.33 times on last day of issue. The issue received total bids for 1,141mn equity shares against the offer of 13.21mn equity shares. The issue price was fixed in a price band of Rs75-80 per share.
The Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) portion of IPO received subscription of almost ~94 times. It received total bids for 620mn equity shares against the offer of 6.6mn equity shares. Out of the QIB portion, FIIs bid for 377.5mn equity shares and MFs subscribed for 120.3mn equity shares. The domestic financial institutions including banks, financial institutions and insurance companies subscribed for 90.5mn, while the remaining 31.7mn shares were subscribed by others.
ICICI Bank reportedly acquired ~177.6mn shares of Western India Shipyard raising its stake in the company to 64.1% from 9.77%.
Shares of Western India Shipyard were locked at 5% to Rs12.86. The scrip opened at Rs12.15 it touched an intra-day high of Rs12.86 and a low of Rs12 and has recorded volumes of over 0.2mn shares on BSE.
Templeton Strategic Emerging Markets Fund III LDC concluded a US$20.6mn investment in Shiv-Vani Oil & Gas Exploration on 23 March 2010. The stock ended higher by 1% to Rs408. The scrip opened at Rs404 it touched an intra-day high of Rs424 and a low of Rs404 and recorded volumes of over 42,000 shares on BSE.