Sensex closes 108 pts down

Despite closing in deep red, Indian equity benchmarks recovered more than half of its losses in the second half of the trade, outperforming global peers. The world markets crashed post dismal report on US job growth and euro debt worries. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell closed 108 points lower at 16,713 after seeing a recovery of over 100 points from day's low of 16,561.46. The 50-share NSE Niftymanaged to hold the 5,000 mark. Experts feel that 5000 is likely to be a crucial support level for the market. The index dropped 23 points from its previous close to end at 5,017.

On the global front, European markets like France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were down 2-3%. The Dow Jones futures too fell 110 points. Asian markets closed down 2-4%.

Rajat Rajgarhia, head of research, Motilal Oswal Securities, said that global trade may continue to remain uncertain and hence, domestic sectors that have got hit by global headwinds will see reduced exposure by investors even if the respective stocks witness a bounce back.

Market is still unclear whether it has any catalyst in the near term, which will help boosting the trade, feels Rajgarhia.

Brooks Laboratories to list shares on September 5

Brooks Laboratories , a pharmaceutical contract research and manufacturing services company, will list its equity shares on exchanges on Monday, September 5.

The company has fixed the issue price at higher end of price band of Rs 90-100 a share.

The Rs 63-crore issue was opened for subscription during the August 16-18, 2011.

Brooks intends to use issue proceeds for setting up a new manufacturing unit at JB SEZ Pvt Ltd, Panoli, Gujarat for manufacturing various pharmaceuticals formulations with cost of Rs 51.8 crore. It also needs Rs 5 crore for long-term working capital.

Asian markets trade higher

At 10 hours IST, Asian markets were trading higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was trading at 20,831.65, up 296.80 points or 1.45% and Japan's Nikkei 225 Average rose 125.94 points or 1.41% to 9,081.14.

Straits Times went up just 1.88 points to 2,887.14 and Seoul Composite shot up 36.97 points or 1.97% to 1,917.08.

Taiwan Weighted rallied 65.14 points or 0.84% to 7,806.50. However, China's Shanghai Composite was trading at 2,562.52, down 4.82 points.

Gold not done yet, expert says Sept to bring all-time high

The commodity space has been buzzing as gold continues to attract investors with its undying glitter. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Tarang Bhanushali, assistant vice president — research with India Infoline says that the price of the yellow metal is only set to climb higher in the month of September.

"We wouldn't be surprised if gold manages to cross the 1900 mark in September,” says Bhanushali. He maintains a buy for gold MCX September, and advices to accumulate at Rs 27,000 with a target of Rs 28,200 and stop loss of Rs 26,600.”

Meanwhile, Ashish Shah of Sushil Global Commodities advices to keep a long call on copper MCX September. “Copper has been trading positive in the last few trading sessions, but the key support for the overall trend is close to about Rs 409 to Rs 410,” says Shah.

Further, he says the near term strategy would be to look for a dip at Rs 415 to Rs 416, as a range to go long with stop loss below Rs 409 and working on a higher side of an overall target of Rs 425 to Rs 430.

Recommending a call on crude, N Prasad, CEO of Safetrade Advisors says it is a buy for crude MCX September contract at Rs 4,070. “Keep a stop loss of Rs 4,020 for target of Rs 4,160 in the late evening session,” Prasad added.

Sensex slumps

The benchmark Sensex rallied over 300 points in the opening trade after two days' holiday. But the index shaved off more than 200 points from that early day's high due to profit booking. Asian markets too were down on profit booking after gains in previous sessions.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 16,773, up 96 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 26 points to 5,027.  

Anand Tandon of JRG Securities said the Nifty would face stiff resistance at 5300 level. However, the market look attractive below 4800 level, he said.

ONGC saw short covering; the stock gained 1%.

ICICI Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Wipro, Ambuja Cements, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Ranbaxy Labs, Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's Labs were witnessing buying interest.