Weekly Market Commentary - Apr 29 - May 3, 2013

Markets continued its upward momentum this week and recorded gain of 1.5% in Sensex, Nifty gaining 1.2% while CNX Midcap rising 2.4%

Monday - Sensex up 0.5%, Nifty up 0.6%, Midcap up 1.2%
Markets went up as Hero Motocorp, HUL and Maruti posted good profits and beat the market estimates.

Tuesday - Sensex up 0.6%, Nifty up 0.4%, Midcap up 0.1%
Sensex made a 6 week high with Unilever announcing $5.4 billion program to raise its stake to 75% in HUL for 600/share. Markets went into negative territory when news of IMF downgrading India's GDP growth estimate from 7% to 6.1%. But markets recovered later when passing of Finance bill assured foreign investors that Tax residency certificate issued by foregin govt will be accepted as certificate of residence.

Wednesday - Markets closed on the occasion of Maharashtra Day

Thursday - Sensex up 1.2%, Nifty up 1.2%, Midcap up 1.2%
Expectations of an aggressive interest rate cut by RBI at its policy review meeting tomorrow and the Centre's recent decision to cut tax rates for foreign investors on interest income from investments in Government bonds and corporate debt to encourage capital inflows boosted market sentiment.

Friday - Sensex down 0.8%, Nifty down 0.9%, Midcap down 0.2%
Markets went down as profit booking occured in interest sensitive stocks. RBI cut its repo rate – key lending rate – by 25 basis points to 7.25 percent and kept the CRR intact at 4 percent in line with expectations. D Subbarao speaking after the announcement said the decision to ease the monetary policy rates was taken considering the steep deceleration in the economic growth.