Indian stock market today - a summary

As predicted earlier in the morning hours of the day, market opened on a high, but eventually at the end of the day, the market closed in the negative zone. Even, encouraging IIP (index of industrial production) figures, failed to boost the market. Whenever, the market tried to surge ahead, profit booking pushed the Sensex down.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19432, up by 45 points from previous day’s close. But by the end of the day, it couldn’t hold on its gain and ended at 19355.26, down 31.88 points from yesterday’s close, before touching a day's high of 19478. The Nifty closed at 5888.00, down 10.80 points from yesterday’s close, before it touched a day’s high of 5924.

Actually, the news that Unilever's Indonesian subsidiary has agreed to pay a higher royalty payment to Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) acted as market dampener and pulled the Sensex down. Worries, that Hindustan Unilever would also have to make a higher payment to its parent company, saw decline in Hindustan Unilever (HLL.NS), ending the day down 2.8 percent. Another factor which prevented the Sensex from making a positive headway is probably the fact that market participants stayed on the sidelines ahead of a policy decision from the U.S. Federal Reserve due after the market close.

RIL, Infosys, TCS, Reliance Infrastructure, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC, Coal India were among gainers in Sensex and Nifty. While, Wipro, ONGC, NTPC, Tata Power,  SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, BHEL , Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr Reddy’s Lab, HUL, Gail India, BPCL, HDFC Bank were among losers in Sensex and Nifty.

Announcement by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, that government has reached an agreement with the opposition for passing the Banking (Amendment) Bill in parliament, without re-sending the bill to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance helped shares of non-banking financial companies to rise.

Though, the market had ended on the downside today and for the last four days, but this is actually a consolidation phase. One must not forget that the market has moved up significantly since September, and this is the period of market consolidation.