WATCHLIST 18AUG TO 22AUG 2008

WORLD MARKETS
(U.S.) DOW(11660) secondary rally towards 12000-12200. Long term bearish.
(U.K.) FTSE(5455) short term buying pressure but long term bearish. Weakness below 5300.
(Japan) NIKKEI(13019) psychological support 13000 likely to fail; Med term target 12000.
(Hongkong) HANGSENG(21160) support 21000 likely to fail; then headed towards 16000.
(China) SHANGHAI(2451) weakness persists; headed towards 2000.
(India) BSE SENSEX(14724) Buying pressure. Support at14000 may hold.

CRUDE OIL
$100 level being watched keenly now. Dollar strengthening and demand weakening could push it down but Georgian conflict and Iranian "moon mission" could keep it buoyant. But indications are of impending weakness in medium term. Long term uptrend intact until $100 not breached.

INFLATION
Moved upto 12.44 last week and more likely headed towards 13 level. Economists are expecting it to peak around that level but still it will take months to bring it down to one digit figure. Inflation is now the bone of contention around the world.

CURRENCY
US $ is more likely to strengthen in near to medium term. It was at 1.60 against Euro until recently. Now it has come down below 1.50 and is more likely headed towards 1.45.
Similarly, Gold is also going down towards $700 in near to medium term.

ECONOMIC REFORMS
Every likelyhood of reforms taking place in India now onwards, as lot of money is required for infrastructure etc. Eventhough, there is going to be strong resistance from trade unions, there is no other way out to balance the fiscal situation also. The recent talk is about pension, BSNL and insurance.

Please keep a watch on our page of updates.