The stock markets may witness a correction during the coming week as prices of key pivotals continued to register new highs. According to leading brokers, the market is likely to witness a correction of 100-150 points.
The trading activity on the stock exchanges remained subdued last week due to a string of holidays. The badla session on Saturday witnessed very high rates, and the average badla rate hovered at around 35 per cent.
Brokers say that it touched a peak of 70 per cent during trading. "The badla trading witnessed a total outstanding position of Rs 950 crore. This indicates that there are too many long positions in the market. We feel that the market will soon witness a correction and register a fall of around 100-150 points," a leading BSE and NSE broker said.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 4118.29 points against last Friday's close of 4076.05 points, a net gain of 42.24 points. The NSE-50 index closed at 1192.40 against last Friday's close of 1173.45, registering a net gain of 18.95 points.
The Sensex touched its seven-month high, and the undertone remains firm on expectations of a market-friendly budget.
Brokers said that a unique development during the week was that while the BSE Sensex went up by 94 points on Monday, the market witnessed a net FII outflow of nearly Rs 60 crore on the BSE and the NSE.
The GDR markets showed a certain amount of buoyancy last week with the Skindia GDR index crossing the 1000-mark during intra-day trading last week after nearly five months. On April 9, the Skindia index closed at 999.93 against 951.30 on April 2, up 5.11 per cent.
The premium for GDR issues rose marginally in the same period to touch 21.03 per cent against a previous week's level of 20.34 per cent.
Amongst GDRs, there were 31 gainers, 24 remained unchanged and 10 lost ground. The key GDRs which gained were Videocon International, up 190 per cent to $ 2.90 against $ 1 in the previous week.
During the week, the 65 GDRs gained 7.97 per cent compared to a gain of 11.87 per cent in the underlying shares. While Dr Reddy's GDR touched its all-time high of $ 14.50, Spic touched its 52-week high of $ 5.10 (April 8). Videocon International and Raymond are currently at their 52-week high of $ 2.90 and $ 5.65 respectively.
In the first quarter of 1998, the GDRs from the power sector gained 0.36 per cent with a compounded annualised return of 21.77 per cent.
On its part, the Skindia GDR index gained only 0.04 per cent with an annualised return of 1.34 per cent.
While the GDRs of BSES rose 4.29 per cent to touch $ 18.25, the Tata Electric float was up 21 per cent to $ 255, and CESC was up 33 per cent to $1.
New Delhi: The initial upbeat mood following assurances by the finance minister to protect some of the sagging domestic industries pushed some shares to over-bought conditions, forcing investors to square off their positions later in the week. This reduced the earlier gains at the Delhi Stock Exchange (DSE) during the four-day week ended April 10.
Reflecting the mood, the DSE index (base 1983) crossed the magic figure of 900 on Tuesday and Wednesday but fell to 884.04 points at the close of the week, still higher by 2.87 points over the previous week's closing of 881.17.
Analysts said that finance minister Yashwant Sinha's promise that protection would be given to domestic steel and other industries created bullish conditions at the exchange. The Reserve Bank of India's decision last week to cut the bank rate by 0.5 per cent increased the buying spree at the local bourse. The trend continued for the first three days of the week.
However, the resignation of union surface transport minister R Muthiah following charges by the Chennai High Court made some operators a bit cautious.
The last day of the week also witnessed a technical correction as speculators resorted to booking profits at higher levels. The domestic punters were seen squaring up their long positions due to the end of the fortnightly settlement period. This, coupled with the absence of foreign institutional investors because of Good Friday and hectic selling by Unit Trust of India, unleashed bearish conditions at the exchange towards the end of the week. While ACC, Bhel, Nestle India were the major losers, HDFC, Hindustan Lever and Satyam Computer were the major gainers during the week.
Calcutta: The buoyant trend in share prices persisted on the Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE) during the week ended April 10. One notable feature was the active interest in some of the hitherto slow movers which recorded appreciable gains as the week wound up.
The turnover was substantially higher compared to the previous week while the undertone remained bullish,though some profit-taking tendency was noted in the last two sessions which pruned the gains. However, operators said the development was a healthy one as it would help correct the market's technical position.
Profit-taking was particularly in evident in the ACC counter which had zoomed in the previous week, and the scrip ended the week at Rs 1545(as against Rs 1620 in the previous week). A majority of the scrips finished the week by recording gains.
These included RIL at Rs 195.10 (Rs 186.80), SBI at Rs 303.50 (Rs 298.20), Tata Tea at Rs 433.50 (Rs 426.60 ), RPL at Rs 24.40 (Rs 20.50), Hindustan Motor at Rs 15 (Rs 12.96),CESC at Rs 48.05 (Rs 42.50), SAIL at Rs 14.30 (Rs 12.60 ) and Bata at Rs 160.50 (Rs 157.30). The shares which closed lower included Telco at Rs 293.90 (Rs 321.90).
In the non-specified list, active interest was noted in the scrips of Chambal Fertiliser which closed at a higher level.
Others to finish with perceptible gains included Woolworth, Bank of Rajasthan, Electrosteel, GE Shipping and BFL Software.
