Mkts see record volumes on expiry day, end marginally up

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The Nifty snapped a six-day losing streak and closed the January expiry session marginally higher. The markets started the day on a strong note following positive global cues and were volatile in the second half of trade.

Even after seeing shorts in the Nifty after a long time, Technical Analyst, CK Narayan feels it is too premature to talk about a big correction. He says the markets still remain in a bullish trend as there are no clear signs yet for a big decline. In fact, he sees a high possibility of a sharp uptrend on short squeeze.

Pankaj Vaish, MD and Head-Equities and Fixed Income Liquid Markets, Nomura India Vaish sees support for the Nifty between 4,500 and 4,600.

Metal, pharma, realty and select banking stocks along with Reliance Industries and HDFC witnessed buying interest while selling was seen in telecom and FMCG stocks along with ONGC, L&T, NTPC, Infosys and Hindalco.

India's largest steel company, Tata Steel reported better-than-expected numbers for Q3FY10. It has reported 155.47% jump in its standalone net profit of Rs 1191 crore and 33% rise in net sales of Rs 6,307 crore, YoY. CNBC-TV18 was expecting net profit at Rs 1,022 crore and net sales at Rs Rs 6,006 crore. The share surged 4.6%.

Index	Closing Value	Chg (%)
REALTY	3,411.56	1.62
PHARMA	4,752.03	1.32
METAL	16,215.58	1.03
BANKEX	9,373.76	0.83
POWER	3,027.49	0.83
OIL&GAS	9,896.11	0.49
IT	5,015.86	0.48
AUTO	6,927.27	0.43
MIDCAP	6,444.51	0.24
SMALLCAP	8,134.89	-0.17
TECk	3,179.67	-0.18
FMCG	2,776.97	-0.24
CAP GOODs	12,961.17	-0.31

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,306.87, up 17.05 points, after seeing an intraday high of 16,524.69 and low of 16,182.14. The 50-share NSE Nifty touched a day's high of 4,929.90 and low of 4,824.95, before closing at 4,867.25, up 14.15 points. These indices lost 6% each in the January series.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will announce the monetary policy around 12 hours IST tomorrow. Vaish expects the RBI to hike the cash reserve ratio and the reverse repo at its policy meet tomorrow. "We don't expect a move on the repo window," he said.

The markets reported highest ever turnover today at Rs 1,92,071.34 crore. This included Rs 20,879.49 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 1,66,193.03 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 4,998.82 crore from the BSE cash segment.

Aban Offshore plunged 8.4% post disappointing numbers and its traded volumes shot up 565% on five-day average basis. The company reported Q3FY10 consolidated net profit of Rs 89.4 crore and net sales of Rs 841 crore while markets were expecting at Rs 171 crore and Rs 928 crore, respectively.

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) also slipped nearly 6% with 390% rise in volumes on less-than-expected numbers. It reported 73.7% decline in its net profit of Rs 102 crore. Other income declined 57.38% to Rs 258.5 crore from Rs 606.5 crore.