A1FS Views

Market in a nutshell

• Local bourses witnessed a robust session. A strong opening was sustained, with a further buying spurt during afternoon trades which caused the indices to advance significantly. Sensex finally closed at 17,126 (up 405 points) while Nifty closed at 5,112 (up 112 points). The rally was mainly supported by telecom, banking and metal front-liners.
• BSE Bankex surged 3% to 8,868 with ICICI Bank being the major puller up 4.5% to INR 916. BSE Metal Index advanced 2.5% to 15,735 with Jindal Steel up 4.5% to INR 2,326.
• Nifty May Futures were trading at a premium of 10 points to spot for major part of the day, which increased to 15 points during the last half hour.
• Market breadth was marginally negative with an Advance: Decline Ratio of 4:5. Reliance Communications rose 8.5% to INR 577.
• Cash volumes were at INR 141,578 mn (NSE) as against a 5 DMA of INR 147,650 mn. F&O volumes were low at INR 338,319 mn as against a 5 DMA of INR 475,612 mn.

Eye Catchers

• Bharti Airtel rallied 9.5% to INR 922 with volumes of 2,386,945 (up 200%).

Market News

• Rupee remained stable at INR 40.19 against the greenback.
• Nymex crude was steady at $117.03/ bbl. Base metals were trading on a mixed note with lead down 2%.
• Inflation rate grew by 7.33% in the week ended April 12 from 7.14% in the previous week, on higher prices of food items, including jaggery and fish.
• Bharti Airtel posted a net profit of INR 17.92 bn for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2008, an increase of 39% as against INR 12.87 bn during the same quarter in 2007.
• Ambuja Cements posted a 42% drop in its first quarter net profit ending March 31, 2008, at INR 3.26 bn as compared with INR 5.66 bn in 2007 Q1.

Indices Performance