Post session - Quick review

Benchmark equity indices, turning cold towards UPA’s victory at Rajya Sabha over FDI in Multi-brand Retail vote, staged heart tendering moves on Friday, as investors already factoring in the passage of FDI in Retail, preferred booking off their profits, only to enter at lower levels. The UPA government on Friday once again tasted success, this time around at Rajya Sabha, after a total of 116 members out of 212 MPs present in the Upper House voted against the Opposition motion against government decision to allow FDI in retail sector. Investors also squared off their positions after reports suggested government seeking to spend an extra Rs 308.4 billion ($5.70 billion) in the current fiscal year ending March 2013, as expected, to meet its upwardly revised fiscal deficit estimate, thereby giving feelers that country’s fiscal deficit once again would overshoot above the government’s new target of 5.3% of GDP due to sluggish revenue collection from its telecom auction and divestments which could force the government to borrow more. In the depressing session of trade, 30 share index, Sensex, despite losing over 50 points, concluded holding the 19400 bastion, while 50 share index, Nifty, too knocking off 4/ 10 percent, settled above 5900 psychological level. For the week, both Nifty & Sensex went home with gains of close to half a percent, while broader indices outperformed frontline equity indices with a fat margin. CNX Midcap and BSE Midcap indices went home with gains of over 2%.

On the global front, Asian pacific shares settled off 16-month highs on Friday as investors preferred to be on the sidelines to watch the progress in US budget talks, although with expectations for an eventual deal and also as they awaited US nonfarm payrolls data, scheduled for release later in the day. Meanwhile, European markets gave up opening gains and were trading weak on Friday amid a worsening economic outlook for Europe in the coming New Year.

Closer home, Realty, Information Technology, Metal and Bankex counters, were the strong contenders for dragging the barometer gauges lower, however, Consumer Durables, Auto counters acting to positive’s, emerged as the lone winners. Appreciation of Indian currency, on hopes of further reforms mainly played the spook for IT stocks. Additionally, major Telecom stocks, viz, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication rang off ahead of conclusion of Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom’s discussions on Friday to chalk out a roadmap for spectrum that was unsold in the recent auction. Meanwhile, all retail stocks, barring Shopper’s Stop, ended in green terrain buoyed by the approval of FDI in Multi-brand Retail. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1435:1479 while 137 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 94.10 points or 0.48% and settled at 19,392.70. The index touched a high and a low of 19,561.87 and 19,363.13 respectively. 8 stocks were seen advancing while 20 stocks were declining and 2 stocks remained unchanged on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was down by 0.14% while Small-cap index was down by 0.16%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Consumer Durables up 0.54% and Auto up by 0.42% were the only gainers, while Realty down by 1.86%, IT down by 1.18%, TECk down by 1.11%, Metal down by 1.05% and Bankex down by 0.75% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up 2.08%, Tata Power up by 0.87%, M&M up 0.60%, BHEL up 0.29% and Hero MotoCorp up 0.20%, while, Sterlite Industries down by 2.43%, TCS down by 1.54%, Tata Steel down by 1.45%, RIL down by 1.38% and NTPC down by 1.09% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 1.83% at 14.96 from its previous close of 15.24 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 34.70 points or 0.59% to settle at 5,896.20. The index touched high and low of 5,949.85 and 5,888.65 respectively. 13 stocks advanced against 36 declining ones while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki was up 1.83%, M&M up 0.99%, Tata Power up 0.92%, JP Associates up 0.91% and Lupin was up 0.87%.

On the other hand, DLF down 3.24%, Axis Bank down by 2.95%, Sesa Goa down by 2.55%, HCL Tech down by 2.01% and Tata Steel down by 1.75% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading on a mixed note with, France’s CAC 40 up 0.04%, Germany’s DAX down 0.07% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down 0.09%.

Asian markets went home on a mixed note, with Shanghai Composite heading for its longest streak of weekly gains in three months, following Wall Street, which ended higher on Thursday, as initial weekly claims for jobless benefits in the U.S. decreased in the latest week. Markets in Hong Kong ended marginally lower in cautious trading session ahead of economic data due to be released over the next few days. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei went home with red mark, as the yen remained firm against the dollar.