Daily stock market review and outlook

Positive global cues, raised growth projections for fiscal year 2013-14 and talk of a fiscally disciplined budget saw Indian stock market indices post its biggest daily gains in a month. Global market sentiment improved after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended on Tuesday the U.S. central bank's monetary stimulus, easing worries over a possible early retreat from bond purchases. Oversold positions of Indian market ahead of derivative expiry tomorrow also helped the market to inch up as short sellers rushed to cover up their positions.

The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 137.27 points to end the day’s trading at 19152.41. The Sensex hit to a day's high of 19213.02 and a fell to a day's low of 18997.82. It opened at 19090.32. The broader indices, NSE Nifty gained 35.55 points, to end the day’s trading at 5796.90. The 50-share Nifty touched a day's high of 5818.20and a day's low of 5749.70. It opened at 5784.90.

Of the 50-share Nifty pack 32 stocks ended with gains while the rest 18 stocks closed with loses. The top 5 gainers among NSE stocks are: J.P. Associate surging by 5.63 %, followed by L&T (3.22 %), Bharti Airtel (3.19 %), Mahindra & Mahindra (3.12 %) and DLF (2.97 %). The top 5 losers among NSE socks are: Ranbaxy (4.20 %), Power Grid (1.85 %), GAIL (1.82 %), Infosys (1.66 %) and Siemens (1.41 %).

Of the 30 shares of BSE index components, 22 stocks ended in positive terrain, while the rest 8 stocks closed in negative zone. The top 5 gainer in BSE Sensex stocks are Bharti Airtel surging by 3.29 %, followed by L&T (3.16 %), Mahindra & Mahindra (3.03 %), ONGC (2.91 %) and Bajaj Auto (2.23 %). The top 5 losers of the Sensex pack were: GAIL (1.72 %), Infosys (1.56 %), Tata Motors (1.11 %), Coal India (1.08 %) and Hero MotoCorp (1.01 %).

Both BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap index closed with gains. BSE Midcap index gained 0.7 % while the BSE Smallcap index inched up by 0.2 % in today’s trade. Among the 13 sectoral indices in BSE, 3 sectors ended with losses while 10 sectors closed with gains.  Top three gainers of the BSE sectoral indices are: BSE CG up by 2.41%, BSE Realty up by 2.12%, BSE Oil&Gas up 1.17%. Top 3 loosing sectors were: BSE IT slipping 0.96%, BSE TECk down by 0.23% and BSE HC down by 0.04%.

The advance decline ratio was however only marginally in favor of the bulls. Of the 2930 stocks traded on the BSE, 1441 (49.18%) rose, 1359 (46.38%) fell and 130 (4.44%) stocks remained unchanged.

Market outlook for tomorrow

Apart from Japan’s Nikkei all the Asian markets ended with gains today. Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.27 % in today’s trade. Jakarta Composite gained 1.14 %, Hang Sang index in Hong Kong gained 0.25 %, China’s Shanghai Composite ended higher by 0.87 %, and KOSPI Index was up by 0.20 %. Markets in Taiwan ended higher by 0.22 % and Straits Times gained 0.21 %.

European markets are also trading with gains after discounting the fear economic slowdown in euro zone due to the inconclusive result in Italy’s election result. FTSE index in UK is at present trading up by 0.75 %, the CAC index in France is up by 1.62 %, DAX index in Germany is up by 0.80 % and AEX Amsterdam Index is up by 0.50 %. US stock markets are also trading with definite gains and are all set to close positive. Dow Jones Industrial Average is trading higher by 0.65 %, while Nasdaq Composite Index is also up by 0.84 %.

Thus the broad outlook for tomorrow’s market seems to be positive. Though much will depend on the budget, but the stage seems to be ready for a budget which will boost the market sentiment in a broad way. Economic survey also points to an end to the downturn. Mr. Chidambaram under the guidance of Dr. Manomahon Singh is committed to ease the fiscal deficit and inflation figure smoothening country’s GDP growth. Tomorrow being the last day of the derivative expiry may witness unwinding of more short positions which will push the market north.