4th October, 2013 : Comments by Amar Ambani, Head of Research, India Infoline
The Indian equity market ended a highly volatile session almost unchanged on Friday as market participants preferred to remain cautious ahead of the August industrial production data and the September import and export data which is scheduled to be released on October 11 and October 10 respectively.
The indices opened with a positive bias. The gains were short-lived as market sentiment was hit after activity in services industry in India shrunk at the fastest pace in more than four years in September. The HSBC Services Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by Markit, slipped from 47.6 in August to 44.6 in September, its weakest since April 2009.
The realty, auto, metals and the oil and gas stocks were among the top gainers. Even the mid-cap and the small-cap gainers ended with marginal gains. On the other hand, power, capital goods and the banking stocks were among the major laggards.
IT majors like TCS, Wipro and Infosys which opened on a smart note erased almost all their gains. Results season kicks off with IT bellwether Infosys coming out with its second quarter earning numbers on 11 October.
The rupee strengthened against the dollar tracking global dollar weakness The Indian unit was hovering at 61.44.
Finally, BSE Sensex closed at 19915 up 13 points, while NSE Nifty closed flat at 5,907.
Amar Ambani, Head of Research at IIFL said, “Nifty negated its bearish head & shoulders pattern and closed above its 200-DMA for the week. However, in order to confirm a trend reversal, Nifty needs to cement its position above 6,000 levels. As long as Nifty sustains above 5,800 levels, we expect the recent outperformance from mid-caps and small-caps to continue.”
Dr Reddy’s Labs, Power Grid, Jindal Steel, IDFC, LT, Axis Bank, Asian Paints and Cairn India were among the top laggards in the Nifty.
Hindalco, Coal India, Lupin, BPCL, Tata Motors, Maruti, Tata Steel and M&M were among the top laggards in the Nifty.
The advance-decline ratio was marginally in favour of the bulls. On the BSE, 1223 stocks advanced against 1139 declining stocks, while 136 remained unchanged.
The INDIA VIX was up 4% at 26.13. It hit a day’s high of 26.74 and low of 24.50.
Shares of Jet Airways was up 3% after the Union Cabinet cleared Jet Airways’ proposed sale of 24% equity to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, days after the Rs20.58bn deal got regulatory clearances.
Sobha Developers surged 9% after the realty firm’s sales bookings rose by 23% to Rs.12.35bn during the first half of this fiscal on account of increase in volume and realisation.
ONGC plans to start commercial production of shale gas sometime next year. The scrip ended lower by 0.75% on the NSE