Another volatile day for the market

Rex Mathew
24 March 2005

Markets opened on a positive note as heavyweights bounced back and the Sensex rallied more than 50 points. Indices soon lost ground and slipped into the red as selling emerged at higher levels. In the early afternoon trades indices made another attempt to recover but went down again. Sensex closed at 6443, down 11 points and the Nifty at 2015, down 11 points. Nifty futures are quoting at a 3 point premium to the spot index.

US indices gave a mixed trend yesterday with Dow closing with marginal losses and NASDAQ marginally in the positive. Oil lost close to 4 per cent and declined below $54 to a barrel. Indian ADR's continue to bleed with HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank Wipro and Satyam all ending up with major losses. MTNL and Dr. Reddy's were the only ones to post gains.

Rumors continue to fly around about the impending settlement between Ambani brothers. Reliance group stocks continue to buzz as managements have neither denied nor confirmed the rumors. Even reports that came late in the afternoon about a delay in settlement did not affect the stocks much. Reliance Industries, Reliance Capital and IPCL were all gainers while Reliance Energy ended up with marginal losses. It is also reported that the exchanges may ask Reliance Industries for clarifications. A formal denial by the company could take down these stocks and the market along with them.

Tata Steel is planning to increase prices of HR coil for long term contracts by 20 per cent. The company had kept the prices steady for the last 6 monts or so even as its competitors increased prices. Tata Steel also received a stable rating from rating agency S&P for its overseas debt issue. The stock gained more than a per cent.

Apart from Reliance and Tata Steel, the other gainers among index stocks were SBI and ITC. Jet Airways posted gains of over a per cent.

Among Nifty stocks engineering major ABB was the major loser with losses of more than 3 per cent. MTNL and Cipla also lost ground.