GalaTime

With yet another 1%+ day, the major market indices hit all-time highs, and a 6-day winning streak (”sixer” for cricket fans). Here are the statistics for the day:

The A/D ratio & TRIN both improved today, along with the number of 52-week highs. Again, large-caps and index constituents feature prominently among the yearly high list. The only concern is the signifantly higher “volume multiple” for the 52-week lows. However, this is mainly on account of the heavy distribution in IVRCL.

As for the 6-day bullish streak, there have been 21 of those since 1995 and only 7 since Jan ‘03. The average next-day change was -0.4%, with std-dev of 0.73%. One more up day and we’ll be in rare territory!

Boy, doesn’t it get repetitious (in a good way, of course) to note the new intra-day & closing all-time highs on the major indices? Today, the action was in the FMCG, Pharma & IT sectors. For those following my more detailed market statistics, here’s a look at the past 8 trading sessions:

Points to ponder:

* Today’s Advance/Decline ratio was relatively high; however TRIN was 1.0, indcating that the volumes of advancing stocks didn’t match the strength of the number of advancing stocks, as compared to the declining stocks.

* Not as many stocks made 52-week highs as on Monday. Moreover, the stocks that did make 52-week highs did NOT see trading volumes substantially greater than their average volumes.

* Both FIIs & Mutual Funds continue to pour large amounts of funds into the market. And a look at the 52-week highs/lows list confirms that the large & mid-caps are seeing most of this action.

* The Nifty-50 index is on a 5-day “up” streak so far; this has happened 21 times since 1995, and only 8 times since January 2003!

(Macroeconomic) food for thought:

* RBI Lecture by ex-Harvard President Larry Summers

* NBER-NCAER Neemrana Conference:

An excellent collection of presentations, some by very well known personalities - thanks to Ajay Shah for the pointer. By the way, check out the conference venue:

Here’s a (somewhat delayed) response to a reader request for more info on Prudential ICICI’s PMS offering. PruICICI has ten (!) PMS options for you to choose from:

i) Aggressive Portfolio: Value-orientation, but could invest in high beta / mid-cap / illiquid / momentum stocks.

ii) Dividend Yield Portfolio : Combination of dividend income and capital appreciation.

iii) Deep Value Portfolio: Undervalued stocks.

iv) Focused Portfolio: Concentrated positions in stocks and sectors.

v) Preservation of Investment Amount (Asset Shield): Mix of fixed income and equity derivatives

vi) Cash future arbitrage: Sell futures, buy underlying stock.

vii) Only Options Portfolio: Stock & index options, long positions in call and put options as well as spreads.

viii) Non-Discretionary Portfolio: PMS Manager has full control.

ix) Alpha Portfolio: Hedging via futures. 

x) Infrastructure Portfolio: Invest in infrastructure stocks, e.g. capital goods, power, cement, metals, banking, etc.

Beyond this, their website does NOT provide any other (critical) details - minimum Investment, fees, past performance, etc.

A Google search turned up this July 2001 interview with Shailendra Bhandari, along with these numbers:

* Minimum investment: Rs 5 million (50 lakhs vs. the SEBI mimnimum of 5 lakhs?)

* Fees: 3-4%

* Assets under management: Rs 250 million (20 customers)

Again, how is a prospective customer supposed to compare PMS’ w/o access to performance metrics?

We’ve seen a fast move in the USD:INR exchange rate over the past few days, with the rupee dropping from 44.2 to 44.7 versus the US dollar. Given that the equity markets have remained stable, and FII net investments have remained firmly in the positive territory, I wonder what’s going on.

For one, it could be related to the recent activity on capital account convertibility - but I doubt that the government & the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can/would move that fast.

Another possibility is rupee transactions by the RBI; but again, if the recent past is any indicator, forex reserves will continue to remain at the $140B level, in the short-term. Here’s data from the RBI’s latest monthly bulletin:

Then of course, there’s the inter-country interest rate differentials to think about. With expecations that the US Fed will continue its 0.25% rate increases for a couple of more times, the rupee won’t look too attractive until interest rates in India begin climbing.

Finally, the current account deficit continues to worsen as the boom in the Indian economy drives a corresponding boom in imports, thereby exerting downward pressure on the rupee. Then again, with $140B in the bank, a deficit of $20B or so doesn’t seem that big, does it?

A look at the USD:INR charts shows that if the rupee were to weaken further, it can hit 45 without much resistance, and then head to the 45.75-46 range.

After 2 posts listing the day’s A/D ratios, 52-week highs/lows, etc. I figured it was time to formalize this into a permanent feature. Introducing the “Market Stats” link at the top of the right sidebar on the GalaTime homepage; it contains:

1. Advance/Decline counts, volumes, A/D ratio and TRIN for NSE stocks

2. Links to daily data on FII & Mutual fund purchases/sales

3. 52-week High/Low counts, and “Average Volume Multiples”

4. Tables of 52-week High/Low stocks, with links to Sify Finance, trading volume, average volume, and volume multiple

The NSE publishes the “bhavcopy” CSV file every evening, so I’ll update the page every night or early next morning. As for what’s to come, here’s some things I’d like to add:

* Sector-wise performance (based on my own, detailed sector classification - this is work-in-progress)

* Index-wise performance (using NSE, BSE & Economic Times Indices)

* Links to multiple sites for each stock (Myiris, Moneycontrol, etc.)

* Futures & Options statistics

I definitely want to avoid duplicating content that’s already available on finance sites. But I’d found most of them not very easy to use, especially w.r.t. data mining.

Comments? Criticisms? Ideas?

FII Net Purchases: Rs. 181.7 crores ($41M)

Advances: 234, Advancing Volume: 1137 lakhs

Declines: 681, Declining Volume: 2198 lakhs

A/D Ratio: 0.34, TRIN: 0.66

52-Week Highs: 29, Lows: 92 (using end-of-day prices)

52-Week Highs: BAJAJHIND BHEL CADILAHC CIPLA DCHL DRREDDY FAGBEARING GHCL GOODLASNER GRASIM HINDCOMPOS HINDDORROL I-FLEX INDLMETER ITDCEM IVRCLINFRA JAGRAN LANABS MASTEK MONNETISPA NITCO NOIDATOLL RENUKA SAELTD SBIN SUBHASPROJ SUNPHARMA TATAVASHIS TORRENTSEC

52-Week Lows: AARTIDRUGS ABSHEKINDS ADANIEXPO AGRODUTCH AMBICAAGAR ANDHRABANK ARL ASHIMASYN BANKRAJAS BASML BCCL BLUECHIP BLUESTINFO BPLENGG CENTEXT CHEMPLAST CINEVISTA COMPUTECH COMSYS COREEMBLG DATATECH DCMFINSERV DCMSRMCONS EXCELINDUS GENESYS GIPCL GOLDTECH GTNIND GUFICBIO GVKPIL HERDILCHEM HINDSYNTEX IFCI IMPEXFERRO INDIAFOILS INDSWFTLAB INDSWFTLTD INDUSINDBK INGVYSYABK IVP JETAIRWAYS KOPDRUGS KOPRAN KOTHARIPET KRISHNAENG LCCINFOTEC LLOYDFIN M&MFIN MARALOVER MELSTAR MRPL NAGPURENG NITINSPIN NRC ORIENTINFO PADMALAYAT PAREKHPLAT PEACOCKIND PENTACOMMU PENTSFWARE PHILCORP PHILIPCARB PRICOL RADAAN RAMANEWSPR RAMCOSYS REGENCERAM SABERORGAN SAHPETRO SALSTEEL SAMBHAAV SAMTEL SATNAMOVER SHREERAMA SRERAYHIST SRGINFOTEC STEELTUBES SUPPETRO SURANATELE SWARAJENG TFCILTD TNTELE TRIGYN TTML VARDHACRLC VIKASHMET VINTAGE VINYLCHEM VISASTEEL VISHALEXPO WELLWININD XPROINDIA

[Highlighted stocks are constituents of the Sensex-30 / Nifty-50 market indices.]

Data sourced from NSE, SEBI.