4 AN OVERVIEW OF YEAR 2006
6. AN OVERVIEW OF YEAR 2006
After touching 14K mark on December 5th 2006, sensex entered into 2007 with a promising figure of 14000+, though the year started on a rather tentative note with a marked slowdown being observed in the FII inflows into the country. The inflows received from FIIs in January and February 2007 was 48 per cent less than what was received during the same period in 2006. The return provided by the BSE Sensex for 2007 turned into negative territory following the 389-point tumble on Friday, February 23rd; the year-to-date return generated by the Sensex was negative 0.97 per cent.
FIIs have pressed substantial sales over those days in contrast to an intermittent surge in inflow in February 2007. As a result, the sensex which closed at 14091 on January 31st, closed at 12938 on February 28th.
As per provisional data FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 613 crore on Friday 2 March, the day when Sensex had lost 273 points. Their net outflow was worth Rs 3080.80 crore in four trading sessions from 26 February to 1 March 2007. Market continued to reel under selling pressure on 5th march 2007 taking cue from weak global markets and heavy FII sales as a result of fall over 400 points, all the indices were in red.
On April 24th, The Sensex again crossed the 14K mark and was trading at 14,150.18 having gained 221.85 points or 1.59%. The midcap and smallcap indices were rather moving slow indicating that the actual movers are the large cap stocks but at the month end it finally closed at 13872. Further we can see May and June having month end figures at 14544 and 14651 respectively.
The benchmark BSE 30-Share Sensitive Index (Sensex) breached the 15,000-mark, to reach a record high of 15007.22, for the first time intra-day on Friday, July 06 2007 before closing at 14964.12. Despite weak global cues, Indian stocks were in great demand, especially auto, pharma, IT and metals stocks. On Friday, this lifted the
Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share Sensex past the magical 15,000-mark.
The Sensex took 146 sessions to cover the 1,000 point distance from 14,000 till 15,000. This is the highest since the index took 371 trading sessions to move up from 6,000 to 7,000.
The sensex experienced its second bigger ever fall on 2nd august 2007. The fall came in after the Fed Reserve cut its discount interest rate at an emergency meeting and JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy Bear Stearns for USD 2 a share. Sensex closed down 951.03 points or 6.03% at 14809.49,
When FIIs were pumping money in stock market and were Net Buyers of Equity worth Crores; the Sensex was moving Up , Up and Up on weekly basis. Many thought that FIIs were playing blind in Indian stock market. But when FIIs have turned Net Sellers of Equity and have started booking profit backed by massive sell off of shares in global markets; Sensex has to go down. As expected; the Sensex plunged by 600 Points in early trading on 16th August and most of the shares were down by 4 to 5 per cent.
But very soon the sensex surpassed the gloomy days and Stock markets on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 gave thumbs up to the decision of the U.S. Fed Reserve to reduce the rates by 50 basis points, as the benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex moved up sharply by 653.63 points or 4.17 per cent at 16322.75. By staying well above the 16000-mark, it outperformed most Asian peers and it was the biggest single day gain. This trend shows that global cues had an influential effect on our market.
On the auspicious occasion of Ganesh chaturathi, India experienced a flow of good news. The festive spirit did not end with the immersion of Ganapati. On Wednesday, it boiled over to the streets of Mumbai and its financial district, the Sensex touched the magical 17,000 number. It took Dalal Street just 5 days to travel 1,000 points. Suddenly, tech stocks, which were the whipping boys till Tuesday, became hot favourites. Why? Hopes that the rupee will soften as a result of RBI's latest
announcements to allow more outflow sparked a rally in tech stocks, pushing the Sensex to a new high of 17,073.87 during the day. At the end of the day, RBI's measures may not be enough to rein in the rupee. But there were no takers for this.
The bellwether index finally settled at 16,921.39.
On October 9th, 2007, Sensex hits a record high of 18,280 on the back of eye-popping rallies in Reliance & Reliance. At the height of the dotcom mania in 1999-00, the easiest way to maximize returns was to buy into any stock with the suffix ‘Software’
or ‘Technologies’. Eight years on, the same seems to hold true for any stock with the prefix ‘Reliance’, given their baffling run-up over the past one month. Eye-popping rallies in Reliance Industries, Reliance Energy and Reliance Communications lifted the 30-share Sensex to a record high of 18,327.42 intra-days.
On October 15th 2007, amidst heavy buying by investors, the bull roared to breach the 19000 mark in just 4 sessions Sensex was up by 639.63 points or 3.47 per cent at 19058.67. This rise came on the back of some strong sectors for which the macro picture is quite bright — power, capital goods, infrastructure and telecom.
Foreign Institutional Investors were pumping in huge money in the equity market and this too was pushing up the index. Since September, they nearly pumped in more
than Rs. 30,000 crore in the cash market. After the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points, a re-rating of the emerging markets had been seen wherein liquidity flows were quite robust.
Then suddenly happened the second biggest crash the sensex ever experienced when the sensex crashed by 1743 points on 17th October 2007 within minutes of opening, prompting suspension of trade for hour fallout of regulator Sebi's move to curb Foreign Institutional Investors. In a knee-jerk reaction to the cap proposed by the market regulator for the Participatory Notes, an overseas derivative instrument (ODI), used by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), the stock market crashed by 1743 points in intra-day, but recovered substantially later to close with a loss of 336.04 points or 1.76 per cent at 18715.82. but it was followed by a huge one-day gain as on October 23 when the BSE barometer rose 878.85 points after market regulator SEBI allowed sub-accounts of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIS) to trade
It took the index a little over 20 years to reach the first 10,000 mark, but just a little over 20 months to double that score and the sensex made history with touching the 20000 mark on October 29 2007. Significantly, it was the local institutions that were in the driver’s seat. As per BSE data, foreign funds have net sold over Rs 1,100 crore worth of shares over the last three trading sessions while local funds have net bought over Rs 2,300 crore worth of shares. Sceptics point to the fact that there were only a handful of stocks that was driving the market higher.
On 13th November, BSE Sensex registered its biggest ever gain in a single of 893.58 points to settle at the third-highest level ever on buying by investors in bank counters and blue chip companies such as Reliance Industries. The market gain was because of global cues. Besides, the political development also gelled well with the sentiment. The rally was driven by short covering, strong buying by domestic investors.
However, there was not much involvement of foreign investors.
But in December 2007, sensex again experienced a black Monday on 17th December. The market succumbed to profit booking, that came in due to weak global
cues as well as profit booking by FIIs in the holiday season. The Sensex ended losing 769 points from the previous close, at 19,261.