Sensex, Nifty witness marginal losses last week

Indianindices ended marginally lower this week. The market sentiments were subdued due to lack of any major announcements from Government. The F&O expiry also had an impact on the market performance for the week. Corporate earnings were mixed and failed to give clear direction to the markets. The 30-share index, Sensex declined 56.97 points, or 0.30% over previous week to 18,625.34. On the other hand, the broad based NSE Nifty dipped 19.95 points, or 0.35%, to 5,664.3. Meanwhile, BSE Midcap and Smallcap underperformed with losses 1.03% and 1.16% respectively. Most sectoral indices at the BSE dropped during the week. Top losers were BSE Consumer durables (4.26%), FMCG (3.01%), Realty (2.38%), Power (1.6%), PSU (1.52%), Metal (1.41%), Teck (1.06%), IT (0.68%), Healthcare (0.56%) and Oil & gas (0.5%). However, BSE Capital goods up by 2.34% followed by Auto (0.39%) and Bankex (0.18%) over the week.The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have been the net buyers inIndian stocks to the tune of Rs 7.59billion till Oct. 23, 2012. The domestic investors sold Indian shares worth a net of Rs 1.98 billion on Oct. 23, 2012. "Unlike the dull trading week that markets witnessed this time, the next week is expected to be all action-packed. The next batch of second quarter corporate earnings, the RBIâ™s review of its second-quarter review of Monetary Policy on Oct. 30, 2012 will be the key events next week. RBI left interest rates unchanged at its last policy meeting on Sep. 17, 2012 citing sticky inflation. Apart from this, the monthly auto sales and cement dispatches data for October 2012 will also be released from Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012," stock broker Sharekhan said."From the political front, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is reportedly expected to carry out a major reshuffle of his cabinet on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, that could see Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi joining the government. The likely changes are aimed at strengthening Congress' prospects in the upcoming state elections and the 2014 general elections," Sharekhan added.Dipen Shah, head of PCG (Private Client Group) research from Kotak Securities said, ''We believe markets are awaiting the RBI decision on October 30 and on the global front, the elections for the US Presidency. More importantly, there have been no announcements on further reforms and some important decisions on issues like NIB, land acquisition and real estate regulator have been pushed forward. These are points of concern.Markets are pricing some of the reforms and if these do not come through, there will be disappointment.'' Important results announcements in the coming week: BHEL, Maruti Suzuki India, Grasim Industries, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Power Grid Corporation of India and Wipro.