Terror-struck, market ends flat at 9,093

As the terrorist impasse continued in the city for the third day, stock markets opened to lacklustre trading with brokers preferring to stay away, especially from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The BSE Sensitive Index ended up by 66 points.

Both the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) opened for trading today, after the Securities and Exchange Board of India had called off trading on Wednesday following the terror strikes.

NSE facilitated its South Mumbai brokers and traders to trade from its exchange premises located in the Bandra-Kurla complex, away from the troubled area. About 20 to 25 terminals were used by such brokers, an NSE spokesperson said.

Trading at BSE was hit more as a spokesperson confirmed that broker presence today was less than 50 per cent of normal. The exchange saw trading worth Rs 2,394.33 crore in the cash segment today while the NSE witnessed trading of Rs 9,753 crore.

On November 26, shares worth Rs 3,230 crore were transacted on the BSE and shares worth Rs 8,802 crore changed hands in the NSE cash segment.

In the futures and options segment, trading turnover was down from Rs 48,889 crore on November 26 to Rs 44,952 crore today, a fall of 8.05 per cent. This is significant as today was also the November 2008 derivatives expiry. But this was postponed as the markets were shut yesterday.

The BSE benchmark index, Sensex, ended at 9092.72 points, up 66 points or 0.73 per cent. Broadbased index, S&P CNX Nifty-50 closed at 2755.1 points, up 2.85 points or 0.1 per cent.

India’s economy grew at 7.6 per cent in the September 2008 quarter from a year earlier after being battered by high borrowing costs, data released today morning showed.

Meanwhile, traders’ sentiments remained weak even in commodities trading as turnover on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) slipped by over 23 per cent in the day session to Rs 4,291.62 crore from Rs 5590.23 crore on Wednesday. Volume of trade remained low. On the NCDEX too, total turnover declined over 18.22 per cent to Rs 1103.77 crore on Friday against Rs 1349.75 crore on the previous day. The turnover on NMCE fell 43 per cent to Rs 277 crore from Rs 486 crore.

There was no panic selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) today. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were buyers today led by insurance major, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and other domestic players. According to provisional data from Sebi, FIIs bought equities worth Rs 168.54 crore while DIIs bought equities worth Rs 621.24 crore.

Edelweiss, a stockbroking house, does not see any long-term impact of the terrorist attacks on the economy or the capital markets though some weakness is likely in the near-term.