Markets end lower; cap goods, realty, telecom, pharma slip

22 April 2009

It was another volatile session for the benchmark indices; both the indices remained under pressure throughout the session. Capital goods, telecom, realty, metal, pharma, select power and banking stocks and individual stocks like ONGC and HCL Tech witnessed selling pressure. However, buying in Reliance Industries, Wipro, Infosys, Suzlon, ITC, ACC, ICICI Bank and Ambuja Cements capped the losses.

Smart traders were looking to book profits in today's trade. Dealers said distribution was quite evident for the past few days, so one needs to be cautious.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 10,817.54, down 0.74% or 80.57 points, after hitting an intraday high of 11,036.24 and low of 10,715.66. The 50-share NSE Nifty shut shop at 3330.30, down 1.04% or 35 points; it has hit a high/low of 3401.10 and 3296.90, respectively.

Rajat Bose of rajatkbose.com said, "The Nifty's 200 day exponential moving average (EMA) as well as 200 day simple moving average is around 3,400 and it reacted from those levels. It is now trying to test the support area between 3,320-3,305 that was the first support range and the next crucial support was between 3,295 and 3,284. Unless this support is decisively broken, you will see some kind of a recovery."

"When it came down to about 3,310 from 3,400 after that it has become pretty much rangebound and volatile within a narrow range. So this suggests that the intraday downtrend is already through. Now maybe a fresh weakness if it was to come, this should come only when 3,284 gets broken", he said.

Leading players in this sell-off were ONGC, BHEL, L&T, DLF, SBI, Bharti Airtel, Sterlite, Maruti, Reliance Communication, Sun Pharma, SAIL, Tata Power and ABB.