Post session - Quick review

With the opposition disrupting Parliament for the third consecutive session today as the earlier efforts by the government failed, the all-party meeting which was held to end the impasse kept the market-mood jittery, leading to flattish close at D-street. In the choppy session of trade, marking the start of F&O expiry week, 30 share barometer index, though gaining over 3/10 percent, ended past 18500 level, the widely followed index, Nifty, settled around its pre-closing levels, i.e., 5600 crucial mark. The broader indices, showcasing degree of outperformance, scooped up gains of over 3/4 percent. Much of the buying that emerged in the last hour of trade, led to a green close at D-street, as investor’s picked up fundamentally strong bets at attractive valuation after government appeared to have succeeded in gathering the numbers to beat a vote in Parliament on its decision to allow Foreign Direct Investment or FDI in multi-brand retail. However, lack of cues from European peers capped the gains of frontline equity indices.

Asian pacific shares ended mixed on the hopes of Greece avoiding a near-term bankruptcy, with euro-zone finance ministers meeting later in the day, but a regional Spanish vote favoring separatist parties that clouded Madrid's push for fiscal austerity, weighed on the sentiment to extent. European shares, on the other hand, edged lower while the euro hovered near a one-month peak against the dollar on Monday as investors awaited the outcome of talks to provide emergency loans to Greece.

Closer home, markets though got off to positive start on the hopes of reform announcement with Government calling an all-party meeting today to resolve the stalemate over FDI in retail. However, benchmark equity indices erased all their gains in the early noon deals after storm over FDI in retail rocked Parliament for the third day in a row with a determined Opposition adamant on a discussion on the issue under a rule that entails voting. Further, markets took a turn for the worst with the start of European markets, with investor’s already concerned about looming tax increases and huge spending cuts in the United States. However, buying that emerged in the last hour of trade, mainly acted as saving grace of local barometer gauges. Much of the support was rendered by the stocks belonging to Information Technology, Consumer Durables and Metal counters. However, stocks from PSU, Bankex and Auto counters emerged as the weak links of the trade. Meanwhile, Aviation stocks flew high. Spicejet, Jet Airways, were the prominent gainers, which rallied over 10-15% on stake sale talks. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1567:1236 while 137 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 27.45 points or 0.15% and settled at 18534.02. The index touched a high and a low of 18590.33 and 18508.79 respectively. 18 stocks were seen advancing and 12 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.96% while Small-cap index was up by 0.80%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, TECk up 1.29%, CD up by 1.14%, IT up by 1.12%, Metal up 0.88% and FMCG up by 0.70% were the gainers, while PSU down by 0.60%, Bankex down by 0.39%, Auto down by 0.34% and Oil & Gas down by 0.26% were the only losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up 2.54%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.18%, Bharti Airtel up 2.10%, Tata Steel up 1.65% and Hindalco Industries up 1.48%, while, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.47%, Sun Pharma down by 1.61%, BHEL down by 1.58%, HDFC Bank down by 1.00% and ICICI Bank down by 0.79% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, ahead of the release of GDP figures for second quarter on November 30, by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the Finance Minister P Chidambaram has indicated that growth of the economy slowed to 5.5 percent in July-September quarter of the current fiscal from 6.9 percent during the same period last year.

The growth remained 5.5 percent in first quarter too and the FM stated that 'When our growth declined to 5.5 percent in the first quarter of this financial year, and when growth is likely to be around 5.5 percent in the second quarter of this financial year, it goes without saying that we face a difficult situation.'

Lots of international and local agencies have scaled down the growth target of the Indian GDP; even the Reserve Bank has scaled down India's economic growth prospects for the fiscal to 5.8 percent from 6.5 percent. Chidambaram has called upon the banks to play an active role in reviving the economy and has said that there is a need to find innovative ways to increase output of goods and services to overcome the difficult economic situation.

However, regarding fiscal deficit he said that the government would stick to the borrowing programme announced in the Union Budget for the current financial year and will remain in the limit of the budgeted Rs 5.7 lakh crore for the entire financial year.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 0.06% at 14.67 from its previous close of 14.68 on Friday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 9.30 points or 0.17% to settle at 5,635.90. The index touched high and low of 5,649.20 and 5,623.45 respectively. 29 stocks advanced against 21 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were IDFC was up 2.38%, Wipro up 2.36%, Bharti Airtel up 1.75%, Tata Steel up 1.70% and Hindalco was up 1.62%. On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra down 3.41%, BPCL down by 1.90%, BHEL down by 1.74%, Sun Pharma down by 1.67% and HDFC Bank down by 1.34% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.72%, Germany’s DAX down by 0.33% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down by 0.46%.

Asian markets ended mixed on Monday in cautious trading session ahead of another meeting of euro-zone finance ministers. Japan’s Nikkei went home with positive mark as Bank of Japan released its monetary policy minutes which showed the board still largely favors further easing. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite both closed relatively flat in negative territory. South Korea's Kospi Composite ended lower, weighted down by Samsung Electronics, which was down 0.2%.