Post session - Quick review

Prolonging previous session’s southbound journey, benchmark equity indices witnessed severe pounding of over a percent on Friday due to sustained selling of funds amid a weak trend in the Asian region largely on account of looming uncertainty over fiscal cliff, which mainly influenced the trading sentiment at D-street. Lacking any positive trigger, benchmark equity indices languished below the pre-closing level for the entire trading session.

Thus, in the gloomy session of trade, 30 share sensitive index, Sensex, on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), offloading close to a percent, concluded below the 19300 bastion. However, widely followed 50 share index, Nifty, on National Stock Exchange (NSE) too despite knocking off over 50 points finished above 5850 level. Broader indices underwent last laceration of over a percentage points. For the week, both Sensex and Nifty ended with loss of over 0.40% and 0.50% respectively. Meanwhile, CNX Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices too lost 0.40%.

On the global front, world shares dipped following the collapse of the Republicans’ ‘Plan B’ vote in the House of Representatives, aimed at offering a solution to the U.S. ‘fiscal cliff’ - a series of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to kick in at the start of next year. With time running short to find a solution before the holidays, the White House, however, said it would work with Congress to avoid the 'cliff' and that President Obama was hopeful a deal can be reached quickly.

Closer home, across the board selling pressure, saw all the 13 sectoral indices ending in red terrain. Yet, stocks from Realty, Metal, Health Care and Power counters led the losers pack. Even Information Technology stocks, which staged resilience for almost entire trading session, surrendered to the profit booking in the last hour of trade. Good dollar demand from banks and importers in view of higher dollar overseas that led to depreciation of Indian currency provided some strength to Information Technology stocks. However, bout of profit-booking which dragged the benchmark equity indices to end near their low levels, also weighed on IT stocks. Meanwhile, most metal stocks fell on profit booking as LMEX, a gauge of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, dropped 0.85% on Thursday, December 20, 2012.  The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 998:1916 while 105 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 216.14 points or 1.11% and settled at 19237.78. The index touched a high and a low of 19394.55 and 19221.12 respectively. 2 stocks were seen advancing while 28 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap index ended down with loss of 1.50% and 1.41% respectively.

All the sectoral indices on BSE were in red, Realty down by 3.80%, Metal down by 2.01%, Capital Goods down by 1.80%, Health care down by 1.79% and Power down by 1.69% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on BSE were TCS up by 0.74% and ITC up by 0.59 while, Sterlite Industries down by 3.64%, Jindal Steel down by 3.57%, Hindalco down by 2.79%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.76% and Tata Power down by 2.27% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, making a strong case for governance reforms so that quick decisions can be taken in the interest of the nation Finance Minister P Chidambaram said, ‘we must reform governance in this country. We must reform governance within the Parliamentary system. The Parliamentary system is in great stress.’

Concerned over the behaviour of Parliament members over the quota bill in the Lok Sabha he said, I think the gravest crisis that India faces is the challenge in the system of Parliamentary democracy. Elected representatives should take quick decisions and work towards nation building.

The statement comes a day after a Samajwadi Party member stunned the Lok Sabha by snatching the copy of the bill for quota in promotion from Minister V Narayanasamy and another member tearing it as a scuffle broke out when Congress chief Sonia Gandhi tried to retrieve the Bill.

With the regular happening of disruptions in the Parliamentary proceeding, previous Monsoon session was also a complete washout as stiff opposition over coal scam did not let Parliament function. Therefore, many important Bills could be cleared. Moreover, even in the current winter session, disruptions have led to the adjournments of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 2.16% at 14.63 from its previous close of 14.32on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 70.65 points or 1.19% to settle at 5,845.75. The index touched high and low of 5,888.00 and 5,841.65 respectively. 2 stocks advanced against 48 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were ITC was up 0.82% and TCS was up 0.48%.

On the other hand, JP Associate down 4.44%, Jindal Steel down by 3.95%, IDFC down by 3.59%, Sesa Goa down by 3.14% and Hindalco Industries down by 3.09% were the top losers. (Provisional)

All the European equity indices were trading in Red, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.75%, Germany’s DAX down by 0.82% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down by 0.87%.

Asian markets went home with a red mark on Friday after Republican lawmakers cancelled a vote on a tax-cut plan, increasing doubts over the U.S. economic condition. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei closed in negative territory as the yen’s upmove weighed on Japanese exporters. Hong Kong closed lower, dragged by energy firms like Petroleum & Chemical Corp., which was down by 1.4%, while South Korean market ended lower with heavyweight Samsung Electronics’ decline by 4.1%.