Weekly Market Commentary - May 13 - May 17, 2013

This was a rather volatile week for the markets. Sensex recorded more than 650 pts movement between its low and high for the week. Market experts made the familiar noises to explain the rationale: whenever market falls, call it profit booking and when it gains, call it FII buying or easy liquidity. Major highlights of this week were the CAD number which came higher than expectation, primarily on gold imports. Call it hedging or sentiments, but investors seems not heeding any call from PC. It also showed that our experts, including the FM has still not got handle of the situation. Markets had something to cheer about in form of lower inflation numbers which raised the hope of rate cut from RBI. Sensex recorded a gain of 1.0%, Nifty gained 1.5% while CNX Midcap rose by 2.2%

Monday - Sensex down by 1.9%, Nifty down by 1.9%, Midcap down by 1.6%
Markets saw heavy selling pressure on Monday as investors booked profits. The continuing rally snapped as trade deficit numbers rattled the markets. Country's April trade deficit increased to $17.8bn due to huge spike in gold imports. Gold imports increased by massive 138% yoy and 72% qoq to $7.5bn. The news of declining retail inflation to 9.39%, falling for second consecutive week, failed to cheer the markets. Retail inflation dropped due to decline in prices of vegetables, edible oil and protein-based items. CPI stood at 10.39% in March.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.5%
Markets stayed rangebound trying to recover from the carnage previous day. All eyes are on WPI data, which street expects to fall further to 5.3% in April against 5.96% in March.

Wednesday - Sensex up by 2.5%, Nifty up by 2.5%, Midcap up by 2.1%
Interest rate sensitive stocks such as banks, auto led the rally on the expectation/hope of a rate cut from RBI and took Sensex back to 20K. The headline inflation fell to 4.89%, lower than market expectation of 5.3%. Core inflation, or non food and fuel manufacturing inflation also declined to 2.74% in April 2013 from 3.41% in March 2013. Market sentiment also turned positive post RBI statement of taking note of falling inflation data when considering potential rate cuts.

Thursday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Markets consolidated a bit, but stayed positive, after huge rally in stocks previous day. Nifty closed over its 30 month high.

Friday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.3%, Midcap up by 0.5%
Markets had a choppy session. Overall breadth and sentiment stayed positive.

Weekly Market Commentary - May 6 - May 10, 2013

Markets continued its bullish trend as easy liquidity flows in; Bullish mood across the world financial markets after major central banks jumped on the global stimulus bandwagon to battle economic headwinds as well as record foreign fund flows had largely triggered the current round of rally. Sensex recorded a gain of 2.6%, Nifty gained 2.5% while CNX Midcap rose by 1.4%

Monday - Sensex up 0.5%, Nifty up 0.5%, Midcap up 0.9%
Markets stayed rangebound with positive tone on the back of FIIs buying shares in Indian companies.

Tuesday - Sensex up 1.1%, Nifty up 1.2%, Midcap up 0.9%
Sensex and Nifty both made their 13 weeks high as global liquidity keep flowing into Indian stocks. The government is looking to launch a Rs 20,000-crore share sale by divesting 10 per cent equity in Coal India, which will single-handedly meet half of this year's disinvestment target and is expected to be completed by September 2013.

Wednesday - Sensex up 0.5%, Nifty up 0.4%, Midcap flat
Sensex crossed the psychological level of 20,000 for the first time since Jan 31. Global liquidity keeps the shares buoyed.

Thursday - Sensex down 0.3%, Nifty down 0.3%, Midcap down 0.7%
Investors booked profits in some blue-chips that registered gains in last few sessions ahead of March IIP tomorrow and a weakening trend elsewhere in Asia and Europe.

Friday - Sensex up 0.7%, Nifty up 0.7%, Midcap up 0.3%
Sensex closed above 20,000 as India’s industrial production climbed 2.5% from a year ago after a revised 0.5% gain in February. The median of 26 estimates in a Bloomberg survey was for a 2.4% gain. The central bank forecasts economic growth will accelerate to 5.7% in the fiscal year through March 2014, compared with the baseline projection of 5.5% for the previous 12 months.

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.