Stay away from choppy market (Column: Market Watch)

Markets were super volatile all through the week. Monday saw the markets begin on a neutral note and it appeared that the anticipated reversal after eight straight days of losses would happen, but then someone hit the futures with a large sell order and markets cracked. Probably, the seller had inclination that China would retaliate on the US imposing higher duties on $ 200 billion of US imports. China did retaliate that night by imposing duties of 20 per cent and 25 per cent on $ 60 billion of US exports to China. Markets rose on Tuesday instead and the reversal did happen.

BSESENSEX gained 467.78 points or 1.25 per cent to close at 37,930.77 points while NIFTY rose 128.25 points or 1.14 per cent to close at 11,407.15 points. The low of the week was 36,956.10 points while it was 11,108.30 on the NIFTY. This effectively means that the BSESENSEX rose almost 1,000 points from the low while NIFTY rose 300 points. The broader indices saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 gain 0.90 per cent, 0.66 per cent and 0.46 per cent respectively. BSEMIDCAP was down 0.57 per cent while BSESMALLCAP was down 1.55 per cent. Markets gained on three of the five trading days while they lost on two days.

Dow Jones was down 178.37 points or 0.69 per cent to close at 25.764 points. The Indian Rupee too was under pressure and lost 31 paisa or 0.44 per cent to close at Rs 70.22 to the US dollar.

The healthcare sector or the pharma sector was under severe pressure with any pharma companies declining around 10 per cent after news of a suit being filed by 44 US States against 20 companies which named seven Indian companies as well. These companies are Wockhardt, Glenmark, Dr Reddy's, Aurobindo, Lupin, Zydus and Taro which is a subsidiary of Sun Pharma.

Tata Global Beverages and Tata Chemicals have agreed to demerge the consumer division of Tata Chemicals and merge the same with Tata Global Beverages. This should be positive for both the companies. Shares of Tata Global Beverages were up sharply gaining Rs 36.85 or 18.57 per cent to close at Rs 235.30, while Tata Chemicals gained Rs 28.80 or 4.88 per cent at Rs 619.10.

The seventh and final round of polling for 59 seats is being held today and would be over by evening, post which the electronic media would start showing exit polls. There are a host of channels which would be coming out with their version of exit polls. These channels could be classified as pro-government, anti-government and neutral with the last of the lot being very few. One would have to do a lot of calculation to decide what could be the final outcome.

Market movement on Friday indicates that the street believes that NDA would form the government. If exit polls indicate something negative to this, there could be a negative movement on Monday. In any case, for the next three days, markets would be volatile based on one's understanding of the exit polls and the possible outcome. It makes sense to stay away from choppy markets unless it is to buy or sell investments. Trading may be dangerous as movements could be very sharp.

It doesn't make sense to be a pollster with exit polls less than a few hours away. Suffice to say that markets confidence in the government of the day is likely to be repeated. Invest wisely. IANS