4th April, 2013 : Thursday – Nifty ends below 200-DMA

iiflThe Indian equity market further cracked on Thursday extending its downfall to the second straight trading session. The Nifty has now dropped ~170 points in last two trading session. The benchmark indices witnessed accelerated selling pressure after the Nifty breached the 200 Day Moving Average third time in the past six trading session.

The index heavyweights like JP Associates, Jindal Steel, HCL Tech, Reliance Infra, DLF and Tata Steel led the decline. Only seven stocks ended in the green out of the 50 stocks of Nifty index.

Finally, BSE Sensex closed at 18510, down 292 points over the previous close. It had earlier touched a day’s high of 18733 and a day’s low of 18473. It opened at 18731.

The NSE Nifty closed 5,575, down 98 points over the previous close. It earlier touched a day’s high of 5,644 and a day’s low of 5,565. It opened at 5,640.

“Slowdown in China and fall in commodity prices are among the major concerns for the Indian markets. The political uncertainty will continue to impact market moves and with talks of an early election on the cards, market may turn cautious in the near term. Upcoming, Q4 results season may manage to bring in some cheer with individual companies delivering good quarterly figures, however we would advice traders and investors to remain cautious,” says Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL.

 RIL, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Sun Pharma, Tata Power, NTPC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Bharti Airtel, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Sesa Goa, Gail India and HDFC were among losers in Nifty.

Maruti, Coal India, Dr Reddys Lab, HUL and M&M were among gainers in Nifty.

The advance decline ratio was in favour of bears. 1841 stocks declined against 913 advancing stocks, while 113 stocks remained unchanged.

The INDIA VIX surged 6.5% to close at 15.85. It hit a day’s high of 16.80 and day’s low of 14.80.

Stocks which hit 52-week high during the week were AKZOINDIA, Nilachal Refractories, Sam Leaseco, Lifeline Drugs, Swadeshi Inds and Kappac Pharma.

Stocks which hit 52-week low during the week were Banco Products, Binani Inds, Godfrey Phil, DIC India and Hero MotoCorp.

Stocks in news

Redington India declined by 5.5% to close at Rs74 after the company was slapped with a tax bill of Rs.138 crore by the income tax department on Wednesday.

Shares of Sterlite Industries was down by 3% after the mining company declared inability to deliver copper from its smelter unit following the closure of the Tuticorin plant in Tamil Nadu last week after complaints of a gas leak, say reports.

Tata Motors edged higher by 0.4% after the company along with its partner, Diesel & Motor Engineering PLC announced the launch of Tata PRIMA range of trucks in Sri Lanka yesterday.

Shares of Dr. Reddy’s Labs surged by 3T to close at Rs1892 after the company announced the launch of Zoledronic Acid Injection in the US market. The injection is the generic version of Reclast, which got United States Food and Drug Administration, is a single use vial for intravenous infusion.

Coal India gained by 3% after reports stated that government plans to sell stake in the mining behemoth. The government plans to raise $3.67bn via stake sale. Earlier reports suggested that CIL is planning to acquire Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto’s coal mines.

Sugar stocks were in demand as the proposal to decontrol sugar is to come before the cabinet on Thursday. Shree Renuka Sugars shot up 6.4%, Dwarikesh Sugar up by 4%, Dhampur Sugar is 5.5%.

Globally, the Rally in the US came to a halt after the Federal Reserve could start tightening its US$85bn a-month asset-purchase plan by the summer.

European stock markets struggled for direction on Thursday, as investors awaited the latest monetary decisions from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.

The euro-zone service sector contracted at its fastest pace since late last year in March, Services PMI fell to 46.4 from 47.9 in February.

The FTSE index in UK was down 0.2%, the CAC index in France was marginally up 0.56% and the DAX index in Germany has gained 0.36%.

The Nikkei index in Japan was up 2.1% after the Bank of Japan’s announcement of additional easing measures. The BOJ decided to launch an aggressive new easing campaign, providing the Tokyo market with incentives to outperform the region for the second straight session.

South Korea’s Kospi was lower by 1.2% and Singapore’s Straits Times Index was marginally down 0.5%.

All eyes are on monetary policy from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi later in the day.

Gold futures fell sharply on Thursday after reports stated that the central bank could start tapering off its asset buys by this summer. On Wednesday, gold dropped to its lowest settlement level since June.