Daily stock market review and outlook

Negative global market sentiment had its toll on the Indian market in spite of the fact that the global rating agency Moody's applauded Finance Minister P Chidambaram's Budget saying that it pursues realistic fiscal consolidation path and is 'credit positive'. Political stalemate in the U.S. and Italy and China's plans for tighter controls on its property sector hit sentiment market sentiments across the globe as markets around the world nosedived in red. Many analysts also feel that slowing growth and ballooning deficit are also hurting the Indian market sentiment.

The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 40.56 points to end the day’s trading at 18877.96. The Sensex hit to a day's high of 18930.86 and a fell to a day's low of 18760.41. It opened at 18920.90. The broader indices, NSE Nifty lost 21.20 points, to end the day’s trading at 5698.50. The 50-share Nifty touched a day's high of 5712.00 and fell to a day's low of 5663.60. It opened at 5704.70.

Of the 50-share Nifty pack 17 stocks ended with gains while the rest 33 stocks closed with loses. The top 5 gainers among NSE stocks are: Bharti Airtel surging by 1.86 %, followed by Dr. Reddy’s (1.33 %), HDFC Bank (1.09 %), Coal India (0.88 %) and Tata Motors (0.83 %). The top 5 losers among NSE socks are: Hindalco (4.19 %), ACC (4.00 %), Jindal Steel (3.96 %), J. P. Associate (3.39 %) and Ambuja Cement (3.22 %).

Of the 30 shares of BSE index components, only 11 stocks ended in positive terrain, while the rest 19 stocks closed in negative zone. The top 5 gainer in BSE Sensex stocks are: Bharti Airtel surging by 1.90 %, followed by Dr. Reddy’s (1.50 %), HDFC Bank (1.17 %), RIL (0.80 %) and SBI (0.78 %). The top 5 losers of the Sensex pack were: Hindalco (4.09 %), Jindal Steel (3.92 %), Sterlite (2.79 %), L&T (2.33 %) and Hindustan Unilever (2.32 %).

Both BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap index closed with losses of 1.4 % and 1.9 % respectively, in today’s trade. Among the 13 sectoral indices in BSE, only 1 sector ended with gains while the rest 12 sectors closed with losses.  The only gainer of the BSE sectoral indices is, BSE Bankex up by 0.27%.  Top 3 loosing sectors were: BSE Metal was down by 2.54%, BSE IT Realty down by 2.25% and BSE CD slipping by 2.15%.

The advance decline ratio was heavily in favor of the bears today. Of the 2928 stocks traded on the BSE, 860 (29.37%) rose, 1958 (66.87%) fell and 110 (3.76%) stocks remained unchanged.

Market outlook for tomorrow

Apart from Japan’s Nikkei all the Asian markets ended with heavy losses today. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.40 % in today’s trade. Jakarta Composite lost 1.04 %, Hang Sang index in Hong Kong lost 1.50 %, China’s Shanghai Composite ended lower by 3.65 %, and KOSPI Index was down by 0.66 %. Markets in Taiwan were closed lower by 1.22 % today and Straits Times lost 0.90 %.

Most of the European markets are trading with losses today. FTSE index in UK is at present trading down by 0.52 %, the CAC index in France is up by 0.27 %, DAX index in Germany is trading lower by 0.21 % and AEX Amsterdam Index is marginally down by 0.04 %. US stock markets are also trading with losses. Dow Jones Industrial Average is trading lower by 0.31 %, while Nasdaq Composite Index is down by 0.33 %.

Thus the broad outlook for tomorrow’s market seems to be negative. Finance Minister P Chidambaram while taking questions on the Union Budget he tabled in Parliament on February 28 from the general public on Google Hangout (a multi-person online video chat) outlined some of his visions, like aiming 9 per cent growth, putting a buckle on import of gold as stopping import gold for one year will reduce the current account deficit of the country to half its present figure and boosting export as exporting more is the only way to meet current account deficit.

Thus more booster doses from the FM are on the cards in the short term. Markets will definitely react to this in a positive way in near future. So it’s the time to invest in blue chip stocks with global presence.