Stocks

Indian stock market volumes continue to be moderate in derivatives despite steady gains in the market in the past few weeks. Nifty continues to trade at a premium to spot, reflecting the bullish trend and the open interest has improved in the market. Traders are expecting Nifty to move all the way upto 5800 incase it makes a move above the 5300 mark.

Indian government cleared a proposal of NYSE Euronext to pick up 5% stake in a commodity exchange through an investment of 218 crores. NYSE will infuse capital of Rs 281 crores in India to acquire 5 percent equity in Indian Multi Commodity Exchange [ MCX ].

Indian stock market closed today with good gains particularly in the banking space. The market did not show any sign of weakness inspite of it being a friday and it also shrugged off the higher inflation number reported today.

Among the top performers of the banking stocks were the Indian banks including ICICI Bank, Federal Bank, Karnataka Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Bankex moved up by 3.6%.

Indian investors faced the wrath of the global market challenges this week with sensex falling more than 1800 points to 19,013.70. This was the largest ever weekly loss with sensex falling by 8.71 percent. This was led by a fear of the impending US economic slowdown, huge sales by foreign investors and an expected but heavier than normal unwinding of leveraged positions in the derivatives market. Market leaders in real-estate, metals, banking and energy saw their values plummet by nearly 8 to 11 percent.