Volatile Trades End Flat

The Indian markets opened their trades on a very flat note today, gained some momentum around noon, but gave up most of their gains by closing. Both Sensex and Nifty closed higher by 0.10%.

Among the sectoral indices, Pharma and Consumer Durables remained up, closing higher by over 1% and helping the markets to remain in the green zone. Others like Metals, Auto, Tech and PSU also closed with marginal gains. On the other hand, FMCG closed lower by 0.23%. Other indices that saw losses are Realty, Bankex and Power, which ended lower by 0.94%, 0.83% and 0.52% respectively.

In the peer Asian markets, Hang Seng and Shanghai continued its gains and closed higher by 0.13% and 0.33% respectively. Japanese market Nikkei closed marginally lower by 0.03%. The weaker-than-expected US jobs data boosted expectations of another round of quantitative easing via bond purchases from the Fed, which weighed on the dollar against the yen, hurting Japanese exporters.

European markets also are trading higher, with the CAC, DAX and FTSE up in the range of 0.01%-0.11%. Market participants are speculating about positive moves from the Fed, which will hold its policy meeting on Sept 12-13, 2012. If the Fed goes for QE3 measure, we may see good momentum in the equity markets all across the globe.

Dow Jones Futures is currently trading lower by 15 points or 0.11% at 13281, indicating a negative sentiment in the US markets.

Back home, most of the stocks continued similar trends as seen earlier in the day. Pharma stocks Wockhardt, Sun Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline Pharma and Aurobindo Pharma ended higher in the range of 2.74%-4.13%.  NMDC closed 2.13% up at Rs 191.62, while other Metals stocks like Tata Steel, SAIL, JSW Steel, Hindalco and Coal India gained nearly 1.2% each.

Capital Goods heavyweight BHEL closed lower by 2.15% at Rs 198.15. Cipla, HUL, ICICI Bank, Jindal Steel, SBI, Tata Power and TCS closed in the negative, with losses in the range of 0.96%-2.16%.

The shares of Bosch closed lower by 0.42% at Rs 8,407. This was after the company announced that it would suspend production at its Jaipur and Bangalore plants on specific days this month to prevent inventory pile up.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, remained on the positive side for the day. Out of the 3280 stocks traded on the BSE, 1676 advanced, 1484 declined and 120 were unchanged.

We expect the markets to continue to remain volatile for tomorrow as investors across the globe would be tracking events like the Fed meet.