Flat Trading :Sensex down by 71 points

Sensex closed down by 71 points at 16015.56. Weighing on the Sensex are losses in Bajaj Auto (621,-4 percent), Satyam (395.05,-4 percent), SBI (1650.45,-4 percent), Infosys (1440.8,-4 percent) and Tata Motors (655.2,-4 percent). Losses are restricted by gains in Hindalco (172.5,+7 percent), HLL (244,+4 percent), Cipla (211.6,+3 percent), Bharti Tele (824.65,+3 percent) and ITC (200.05,+3 percent).

BSE Realty Index was up 2.3% Orbit up 18%, Unitech up 4%, DLF up 2.3%, HDIL up 4.8%. BSE FMCG Index was up 2%; HUL up 4%, ITC up 2.5%. Index gainers were stocks like Hindalco up 7%, Suzlon up 5%, Bharti up 3%. BSE IT Index was down 3%; Satyam down 4.5%, Infosys down 3.85%, HCL Tech down 4.7%. Index losers were stocks like Tata Comm down 4.4%, SBI down 3.9%, L&T down 3%

Mid-cap gainers were stock like Noida Toll up 10%, Edelweiss up 16%, Sasken up 10%, Tulip IT up 13%. Small-cap gainers were stocks like JB Chem, Asian Granito, Classic Diamonds up 20% each. NSE Advacnce Decline stood at 5:4. Total market turnover was at Rs 86078.56 Crore.

Two Wheeler loans become harder:

Getting a loan for two wheelers is not easy any more. Higher down payments and increase in interest rates will reduce the demand for the bikes. SBI have increased the interest rates by 50 bps to 15.50% while Canara Bank increased to 11.50% from 9.5%.

ICICI Bank has the highest interest rates of 23%. Banks said that the increase in the interest rates was due to increase in the cost of borrowing money and also the cost of recovering money has gone up. Down payments in some cases have really gone up as high as 30% of the bikes cos

Citi Financials have stopped giving two wheelers loans. Defaults in this segment have shot up to 5% of the total two wheeler loans from 2% last year. Demand of bikes would decrease and impact the companies as they have to even juggle with the higher input cost which eats up the margins. The impact would be more in the rural areas where most of bikes sold are 100cc and Hero Honda is a big player here.


FNO SNAPSOHT
Market wide Rollover stood at 71%. Nifty Rollover stood at 56.6%. Quiet expiry day rollovers remained low. Nifty Rollovers failed to pick up. It remained much lower than average. Nifty April futures ended day at a significant premium. Strongest Rollover was seen in Cement, IT Metal and Banking space. Weakest rollover was seen in FMCG, Auto and Power Space. Selective pick up was see in stock future rollovers. Nifty 4500 April Put and 5000 April Call did see maximum open interest buildup.


ASIA TODAY
Shanghai was down 5.4%. It had hit 9-month lows. The report said that China Minsheng has liquidated an equity-based fund that invested in overseas markets after its value had fallen by more than 50%. Taiwan was down 1.8%, Nikkei was down 0.8%, Kospi was down 0.2%. Hang Seng recovered from day's low. Straits Times was up 1%, Thailand was up 0.8%.

Concerns
Oppenheimer & Co said that Merrill Lynch & UBS may suffer respective 1Q write-downs of $ 6.03 billion & $ 11.06 billion. There were rumors that some European banks could have some writedowns going ahead. Reports showed that bond insurer FGIC has fallen below legally required statutory capital levels. Financial downgrades by Oppenheimer.

Taiwan Flows
Among Taiwan markets FIIs dd see net sell equities worth $ 790 million in today’s trade (Prov). FIIs bought equities worth $ 3.2 billion in last 4 sessions.

Data To Watch
4Q GDP Final U.S. final fourth-quarter GDP is expected to increase 0.6%, Jobless Claims number of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time, Corporate Profits Report, Accenture numbers tonight, would give flavour of IT spending and Consulting spend.

Technically Speaking: Sensex traded choppy for entire day. It made an intraday high of 16,111 and low of 15,869. The overall breadth was in favor of Advances while Advances stood at 1467 and Declines at 1245. Turnover was pretty good at Rs 6343 cr. Sensex remains under pressure from 16200-16300 range. We see a good upside if that level is broken, and Sensex can move upto 17100. On the lower side, 15780 and 15600 are good supports.