Sensex lags behind Asian counterparts, gains 286 pts

Aug. 20: The continuing political uncertainty cost the Sensex at least 100 points so that it could not compete with the buoyancy of its Asian counterparts. Call it the Red effect, but investors were booking profits at every rise, unwilling to hold on for fear of how the political situation would turn out.
The Sensex scaled over 400 points soon after opening trade and see sawed between 300-400 points, but towards the last hour of trade it shed those gains and closed up just 286.03 points at 14,427.55 still below the 15,000 mark. Stockbroking consultant Mr S.P. Tulsian said: "People actually don’t realise that we did not fall as much as the Asian markets fell on Friday. We were down by 500 points on Friday but recovered about 400 and closed down to lose 217 points. Since we did not fall that heavily Monday’s recovery was about 200 points. Had we fallen more on Friday we would have seen a bounce back of 500 points." However he added, "There is some concern on the political front and this has taken away at least 150 points. So these are the two main reasons for Monday’s bounce back not being as spectacular as that of the Asian markets."
Among the Asian markets, Japan gained at 458.80 points, its highest in three months. The injection of funds with the US Fed cutting interest rates marginally, gave the much needed boost to the markets. The Hang Seng gained a handsome 1,208.5 points while the Straits Times was up 191. 67 points and the Shanghai index 248.28 points. No analysts were willing to hazard a guess as to what tomorrow will bring. Mr Tulsian said, "It all depends on how the US markets play out on Monday. There is no point in taking a call."