Market Commentary - Today 18th November 2010

Courtesy : Utvi.com

A volatile trading session ended with mild positive gains. Kick-starting trade on a firm note, the market plunged to its day’s lows, bounced back to green territory, slipped back to negative terrain, but later regained and closed flattish with a positive tint. The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex ended at 19,930.64, up 65.50 points, or 0.33% from the previous close, while the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty closed at 5,998.80, higher by 10.10 points, or 0.17%.

However, all was not so good for the broader market indices. The BSE Midcap and BSE Small-cap indices lower by 0.3% and 1.06% respectively. Similarly, market breadth remained negative throughout the day. Of the total 3085 stocks traded on the BSE, 1893 declined, 1052 advanced and 140 remained unchanged.

Globally, Asian markets closed higher as European officials sought a way to fix the region's debt crisis and China appeared poised to cool rising food costs with price controls rather than interest rate hikes. The key benchmark indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea rose between 0.34% and 2.06%. European markets, also, shared the same optimism. The key benchmark indices in France, Germany and UK rose between 0.57% and 2.42%.

Back home, BSE Metal index (1.8%) and BSE Auto index (1.4%) were the major gainers among the 13 sectoral indices. However, BSE Bankex and BSE Consumer Durables index, both of them losing 1.6%, were the major losers.

Nifty Gainers: Hero Honda, on the back of Honda’s stake sale news, rose 5.9%, Cipla gained 4.7%, while Bharti Airtel and Hindalco Ind were up 4.3% each. Airtel, one of India’s largest cellular phone operators, today announced that it crossed 200 million customers.

Nifty Losers: Reliance Communications (-5%), Reliance Capital (-4%), Cairn India (-3.28%), ICICI Bank (-3%) and Axis Bank (-2.5%) were the major losers on the 50-stock index.

Midcap Play

Among the midcap companies, KGN Industries gained 8.32%, Bata India rose 6.45%, Den Networks was up 5%, Mcleod Russel rose 4.38% and Bhushan Steel gained 4%. On the other hand, MVL lost 7%, Indiabulls Finance fell 6%, Kwality Dairy was down 5.7% and Cholamandalam