Today's market review

Weakness in the global markets after Fed meeting minutes indicated it could slow its bond buying program triggered a global sell-off yesterday and today as well and took its toll on the Indian equity market, which ended at its lowest level in the calendar year. Caution seems to be the buzzword of the market these days ahead of the union budget on 28^th February. It was a listless day of trading at the Indian bourses as benchmark indices moved in a narrow range. Market participants refrained from increasing their positions amid expiry of derivatives next Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed marginally lower by 8.35 points to close at 19317.01. The Sensex surged to a day's high of 19401.75 and a fell to a day's low of 19289.83. It opened at 19341.90. The broader indices, NSE Nifty lost 1.95 points, to end the day’s trading at 5850.30. The 50-share Nifty touched a day's high of 5873.80and a day's low of 5835.80. It opened at 5837.95.

Of the 50-share Nifty pack 31 stocks ended with gains while the rest 19 stocks closed with loses. The top 5 gainers among NSE stocks are: Bharti Airtel surging by 4.54 %, followed by DLF (3.30 %), Wipro (2.50 %), Power Grid (2.06 %) and Sun Pharma (1.76 %). The top 5 losers among NSE socks are: Hindustan Unilever (2.74 %), Coal India (2.53 %), J P associate (2.16 %), Maruti (1.98 %) and HDFC (1.86 %).

Of the 30 shares of BSE index components, 15 stocks ended in positive terrain, while the rest 15 stocks closed in negative zone. The top 5 gainer in BSE Sensex stocks are Bharti Airtel surging by 4.64 %, followed by Wipro (2.43 %), Sun Pharma (1.96 %) ICICI Bank (1.22 %) and Infosys (1.06 %). The top 5 losers of the Sensex pack were: Hindustan Unilever (2.60 %), Coal India (2.31 %), Maruti (2.09 %), HDFC (1.89 %) and Tata Motors (1.60 %).

Both BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap index closed with gains of 0.6 %. Among the 13 sectoral indices in BSE, 8 sectors closed with gains, while the remaining 5 sectors closed with losses. The only gaining sector has been BSE CD, which is marginally up by 0.04 %. The top 3 gaining sectors were: BSE Realty surging by 1.35%, BSE TECk rising by 1.33%, BSE IT up by 0.83%. Top 3 loosing sectors were: BSE FMCG down by 1.41%, BSE Auto down by 0.55% and BSE Metal down by 0.53%.

The advance decline ratio was heavily in favor of the bears. Of the 2994 stocks traded on the BSE, 1043 (34.84 %) rose, 1072 (35.80 %) fell and 879 (29.36 %) stocks remained unchanged.

Asian markets showed mixed trend today. Japan’s Nikkei was up by 0.68 %, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.40 %, Hang Seng index in Hong Kong lost 0.54 %, China’s Shanghai Composite ended lower by 0.51 %, KOSPI Index was up by 0.18 %, markets in Taiwan ended lower by 0.12 % and Straits Times gained 0.02 %.

European markets are trading with gains after discounting U.S. Federal Reserve minutes on bond buying. FTSE index in UK is trading up by 0.70 %, the CAC index in France is up by 2.25 %, DAX index in Germany is up by 1.03 % and AEX Amsterdam Index is lower by 1.04 %. US stock markets are also trading higher at this moment. Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by 0.45 %, Nasdaq Composite Index is also up by 0.53 %.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to remain bullish on India. Continuing their buying spree, FIIs bought shares worth a net Rs 1,213.57 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.