LACKLUSTRE

The markets opened on a negative note and touched their intraday lows within the first two hours of the trading session,  but slowly recovered till the end of the first half of the trading session and entered the positive zone briefly, at the start of the second half of the trading session, and entered the negative zone once again, but the markets slowly recovered and somehow stayed in the positive zone for the last one and half hours of the trading session. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, down by 1 & 5 points respectively. The market breadth was marginally positive with 844 advances to 601 declines. On the sectoral front , there was hardly any activity, but the FMCG sector was the biggest looser. On the individual stocks front, GAIL, JP Associate, Tata Steel, Cairn &  State Bank Of India were the star performers of the day. On the institutional side, the FIIs were net sellers to the tune of a massive 624 crores, while the DIIs were net buyers to the tune of 435 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side the FIIs sold Index futures worth 398 crores and brought Stock futures worth 209 crores. Nifty future closed at 4919, with just one point discount to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the Options side, PCR increased to 1.10, along with moderate fall in the India VIX by 1.37%.On the Call options side, the 4800 call, lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 4700, 5100 & 5300 calls, while the 5000 call added the maximum open interest followed by the 4900 call. On the Put options side, the 4800 put, lost the maximum open interest followed by the 5000 5200 & 5100 put options. The entire activity in the F&O space indicates unwinding of shorts just before the expiry week kicks in, and at the same time FIIs are liquidating their cash market positions and building long positions in stock futures. On the currency front, the Rupee appreciated a bit and the USD-INR future closed at 55.41.

On the technical side, Nifty has once again managed to close above the crucial mark of 4888, for the second consecutive session, and the technical indicators, both on the daily and weekly charts, indicate a short term bounce back in the short term. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be, 4940, 4960 & 4986 on the upside, and 4894. 4868 & 4848 on the downside.

On the international market front, the Asian and the European markets have closed almost flat , while the U.S. markets have closed in the red. On the Energy futures the Brent and WTI crude futures have closed almost flat at 106.83 and 90.86 $/bbl. The U.S. markets will be closed tomorrow due to memorial day.

STOCK PICKS

ICICI BANK - BUY 795 - 805. SL - 779. TGT - 826, 832 & 845.

LT -  BUY 1165-1175 SL - 1132. TGT - 1205, 1219 & 1230

AXIS BANK - BUY 980 - 990. SL  - 960. TGT - 1010, 1021 & 1034.

JP ASSOCIATE -  BUY 59 - 60. SL - 58 TGT - 62, 63.70 & 64.80