Post Market Report - October 7, 2008

In dilemma

After gyrating 679 points during intra-day trades, the Sensex ended with marginal losses on selective buying.
The market seemed to indecisive today. It moved up the back of CRR cut and lifting of curbs on P-notes announced by RBI yesterday and slid down on falling markets across the globe.

The market displayed volatility and witnessed fluctuating trend during intra-day trades before selective buying towards the fag end saw the Sensex end with modest loss. Although the Sensex started on a firm note at 12,068, the market was choppy for a while before a strong bout of buying support lifted the index above the 12,150 mark to an intra-day high of 12,181. However, the gains faded by mid-morning trades on resumption of selling, with the index falling sharply in the afternoon to touch the day's low of 11,502. Sensex thereafter steadily erased its losses and finally ended the session with a loss of 106 points at 11,695, while Nifty added four points to close at 3,607.

The market breadth was extremely negative. Of the 2,683 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,822 stocks declined whereas 787 stocks advanced. Seventy four stocks ended unchanged. On sectoral front, the BSE Oil & Gas was the major gainer and moved up by 1.30% at 8,012, while BSE PSU and BSE Power were up around 0.50% each. However, the BSE CG, BSE IT, BSE Bankex, BSE FMCG and BSE FMCG were the main laggards. The remaining indices were marginally down.

Buying in select blue chips helped the index end in the positive territory. Among the gainers, NTPC gained nearly 4.27% at Rs175.90, Ranbaxy Laboratories added 3.88% at Rs256, BHEL jumped 3.26% at Rs1,496.70, Bharti Airtel jumped 2.66% at Rs749.05, Reliance Industries added 2.04% at Rs1,675.40 and Tata Steel moved up by 2.03% at Rs357.35. Reliance Infrastructure, Grasim Industries, Maruti Suzuki India, ONGC and Tata Motors ended with steady gains. Selling was witnessed in several frontline counters. Tata Consultancy Services shed 7.02% at Rs575.80, Larsen & Toubro dropped 6.94% at Rs1,008.10, Sterlite Industries declined 6.35% at Rs314.05, HDFC Bank fell by 6.17% at Rs1,127.70 and Mahindra & Mahindra lost 5.84% at Rs473 while Satyam Computer Services, Wipro, Tata Motors, ITC and State Bank of India ended with losses in the range of 1-4%.

Over 1.41 crore Reliance Natural Resouces shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Idea Cellular (1.18 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals (1.02 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (82.07 lakh shares) and IFCI (77.66 lakh shares).

Source: Sharekhan