Nifty hit 5000 today as we have been suggesting. The market will now oscillate between 4,800 and 5,000

The market opened firm, reflecting the massive overnight rally in the US and rally in Asia this morning, but gave up a lot of gains during the day. Yesterday we had mentioned that the Nifty may have a struggled gain to the level of 5,000 if the Nifty manages to sustain itself above the day’s low. Today the index crossed this level and settled at 4,937, in the positive for the second day. From here we may see the Nifty move in a narrow range of 4,800 and 5,000. However, if the index closes below 4,800, we may again see a decline. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a volume of 56.15 crore shares.

The domestic market witnessed a gap-up opening on firm global cues as the world’s top six central banks on Wednesday acted jointly to provide cheaper dollar liquidity to European banks that are facing a credit crunch. The Nifty opened 139 points higher at 4,971 and the Sensex surged 433 points to start trade at 16,556. The indices high their day’s high in initial trade with the Nifty scaling 5,012 and the Sensex at 16,718.

The market was range-bound in subsequent trade on nervousness ahead of the weekly food inflation numbers. However, food inflation witnessed a sharp moderation to 8% for the week ended 19th November from 9.01% in the previous week, even though prices of most agricultural items, barring potatoes, onions and wheat, continued to rise on an annual basis.

The indices pared some of their early gains in the post-noon session as European markets gave up early gains ahead of a bond auction by Spain and France. The benchmarks touched to their intraday lows around 2.10pm with the Nifty falling to 4,917 and the Sensex going back to 16,431.

The market closed off the lows but in the green for the second straight day. At the end of trade, the Nifty gained 105 points at 4,937 and the Sensex settled at 16,483, up 360 points over its previous close.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was a positive 1084:570.

While the broader indices also ended higher, they couldn’t match the Sensex’s performance. The BSE Mid-cap index gained 0.97% and the BSE Small-cap index rose 0.43%.

Barring the BSE Healthcare index (down 0.32%), all other sectoral gauges settled higher. The gainers were led by BSE Metal (up 4.14%); BSE Bankex (up 3.72%); BSE Realty (up 3.54%); BSE Consumer Durables (up 2.58%) and BSE Auto (up 2.40%).

The top Sensex gainers were Hindalco Industries (up 6.97%); ICICI Bank (up 6.76%); Sterlite Industries (up 6.19%); Tata Motors (up 6.06%) and DLF (up 5.34%). The key losers were BHEL (down 2.46%); Bharti Airtel (up 1.65%); Hindustan Unilever (down 1.29%); Maruti Suzuki (down 0.69%) and Sun Pharma (down 0.21%).

The 50-share Nifty list was headed by Hindalco Ind (up 6.99%); ICICI Bank (up 6.95%); SAIL (up 6.73%); Sterlite Ind (up 6.34%) and Tata Motors (up 5.70%). The laggards were BHEL (down 3.08%); BPCL (down 2.69%); Dr Reddy’s (down 2.31%); Bharti Airtel (down 2.24%) and Maruti Suzuki (down 1.25%).

The Asian pack registered gains in the range of 0.89% and 5.63% on the efforts of the world’s central banks to provide dollar liquidity to European banks and the Chinese central bank’s move to cut reserve requirements for commercial lenders on Wednesday.

The Shanghai Composite climbed 2.29%; the Hang Seng soared 5.63%; the Jakarta Composite gained 1.78%; the KLSE Composite rose 0.89%; the Nikkei 225 advanced 1.93%; the Straits Times surged 2.20%; the Seoul Composite settled 3.72% higher and the Taiwan Weighted jumped 3.98%.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of stocks totalling Rs34.12 crore on Wednesday while domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities amounting to Rs193.82 crore.
 
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