Pri Market Commentary ...

Today, we could see the key indices opening on a cautious to slightly higher note. There is no clear trend emerging from the global markets at this point in time. Some markets are slightly down while some others are modestly up. Oil has cooled off to $140 per barrel after hitting $143.67 in electronic trading yesterday. However, this is still quite a bit high and only a drop to $100-110 levels will bring cheers to the stock markets.

As we sit drenched mailing you this note, thanks to the heavy downpour in Mumbai, the factors behind this year's worldwide stock market rout have been already well articulated. What we would say (at the cost of repeating though) is that the current rough and tough time is unlikely to end soon. One should brace for some more downside (difficult to predict accurately), before things start looking up again. Some improvement is likely sometime either in the last quarter of 2008 or in the first half of next year.