Markets end marginally lower; RIL, ONGC, SBI, HDFC Bank gain

01 September 2008

Markets have shown smart recovery in last half an hour of trade and ended marginally lower as heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ONGC, HDFC Bank, ITC, SBI, BHEL and Satyam have supported frontline indices. Short covering has helped markets to recover in late trade.

Sell off continued in metal, telecom, power, auto and technology stocks while buying seen in oil and banking stocks. Markets had opened lower on the back of weak global cues and traded sharply lower till 3 pm.

The Sensex and Nifty recovered over 217 points and 67 points from days low of 14,281.10 and 4281.35, respectively. Sensex closed with a loss of 66.02 points or 0.45% at 14,498.51. Nifty lost 11.35 points or 0.26% to settle at 4348.65. BSE Midcap and Small Cap Indices closed flat at 5,741.98 and 6,891.39, respectively.

Experts believe that overall trend is still negative in markets. Nandan Chakraborty, Head Of Research at Enam Securities feels that currently the markets are seeing a bear market rally. He does not anticipate a strong bull rally right now.

Shankar Sharma of First Global said that the overall trend in market is still down and the rally from 12,500-15,000 is over and done with. According to him, the markets may slip to 10,000 levels this year or early next year and may then start moving up gradually over next three years. He sees the Sensex bottom within the 10,000-12,500 range. He believes that the market could double from lows but that may be short-lived.

Amongst frontliners, Ranbaxy Labs plunged 3.61%, Tata Steel -2.67%, Maruti Suzuki -2.56%, Bharti Airtel -2.50%, NALCO -2.18% and Reliance Communication -1.71%. However, HCL Technologies gained 3.97%, Sun Pharma 2.45%, Hero Honda 2.33%, ABB 2.12%, ITC 1.72%, HDFC Bank 1.48%, BHEL 0.90%, SBI 0.88% and Satyam 0.85%.