Comments on market by Mr. Amar Ambani; Head of Research – India Infoline Limited (IIFL) – 26th March, 2013

iifl26th March, 2013 : Sensex, Nifty snap losing streak to end flat

The Indian equity market ended almost unchanged on Tuesday. The NSE Nifty and the S&P BSE Sensex snapped a six day losing streak amid a choppy trading session. Market traded in a narrow range with benchmark indices swinging between negative and positive zone through the day.

The S&P BSE Consumer Durables index was the top gainer, up 1.6%, followed by S&P BSE FMCG index up 1.1%, S&P BSE Teck index up 0.7% and S&P BSE IT index 0.5%.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap and the Small-Cap index ended almost unchanged.

The S&P BSE Oil & Gas index was the top laggard, down 2% followed by S&P BSE Realty and Capital Goods lost 2% each.

Finally, BSE Sensex closed at 18704, up 23 points over the previous close. It had earlier touched a day’s high of 18758 and a day’s low of 18612. It opened at 18645.

The NSE Nifty closed 5,641, up 7 points over the previous close. It earlier touched a day’s high of 5,655 and a day’s low of 5,612. It opened at 5,613.

“Market ended with marginal gains amid choppy session on Tuesday as market participants preferred to remain on the side lines ahead of the F&O expiry on Thursday. Breadth of market favouring declines remain an immediate concern but as long as Nifty adheres to 200 DMA placed at 5,624, some bounce back is not ruled out,” says Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL.

Indian stock markets will remain shut on Wednesday and Friday this week on account of Holi and Good Friday.

Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, NTPC, HDFC, Tata Motors, Coal India, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki were among gainers in Sensex and Nifty.

RIL, Tata Power, L&T, Gail India, Hero MotoCorp, Mahindra & Mahindra, SBI, Dr Reddy’s Lab, Sterlite Inds and BHEL were among losers in Sensex and Nifty.

The advance decline ratio was in favour of bears. 1459 stocks declined against 1291 advancing stocks, while 135 stocks remained unchanged.

The INDIA VIX was down 3.2% to close at 15.80. It hit a day’s high of 16.84 and day’s low of 15.64.

Stocks which hit 52-week high during the week were Nilachal Refractories, Dhanleela Inv, Sam Leaseco, Grandma Trad and Lifeline Drugs.

Stocks which hit 52-week low during the week were ABB, Ambalal Sarabhai, Apple Finance, Banco Products and Best & Crompton.

Bharti’s fully owned subsidiary in the Netherlands Airtel (Bharti Airtel International Netherlands) successfully raised US$250mn yesterday from the international markets after raising $1bn through bond sale last month. The Netherland arm sold US$500mn worth of bonds which carry a coupon rate of 5.04%. These are US dollar denominated bonds having a maturity period of 10 year. The bond is set to be merged with earlier bond issue, said the reports.

Bharti Airtel shares surged 3%. The stock hit an intra-day high of Rs298 and a low of Rs285. Total traded quantity at the counter stood at 66lakh on NSE.

Shares of Educomp declined by 3% after the company announced that it completed the sale of its entire 50% stake in Eurokids International Limited to a group of investors led by GPE India. Educomp had finalised the stake sale on 8 January 2013.

In Europe, stock markets rebounded after a three-day losing streak on Tuesday. In Cyprus it was announced that banks and the stock exchange will remain closed until Thursday.

The FTSE index in UK was slightly up by 0.10%, the DAX index in Germany was up 0.20% and the CAC index in France was up by 0.6%.

Most Asian markets ended on a mixed note on Tuesday. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 0.3%, the Kospi index gained 0.30%, the Straits Times index rose by 0.64% and the Taiwan index ended unchanged.

The Shanghai index in China was down 1.3% and the Nikkei index in Japan was down 0.6%.