RELIEF ??

The markets opened on a flat note and continued to trade in the same range, for the next one hour of the trading session. Just when it seemed that the markets will go the same way, they have been trading for the last two weeks, to everyone's surprise the market's started strengthening and from that point onwards, there was no looking back and the markets touched their intraday highs at the start of the second half of the trading session. Well it was not a straight upward surge, it was stopped intermittently by several bouts of selling. Ultimately both Nifty and Sensex closed up by 35 and 112 points respectively. The market breadth was mildly positive with 789 advances to 663 declines. On the sectoral front, the IT sector was the biggest gainer followed by the Banking, Metals and Pharma sector, on the other hand the FMCG sector was the biggest looser of the day. On the institutional side, both the FIIs and DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 184 & 43 crores respectively.

On the derivatives side the FIIs sold Index futures worth 67 crores and brought Stock futures worth 90 crores. Nifty future closed at 4942, with 1 point discount to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the options side the PCR marginally increased to 0.96, along with a fall in the India VIX by 4.21%. On the Call options side, the 4900 call lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5400,5300 & 5600 calls, on the other hand 5200 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5100 & 5000 calls. On the Put options side, the 5200 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5100 & 5300 puts, on the other hand the 4800 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 4700 & 4900 puts. The activity in the F&O space as well as the cash markets indicates , that today's rally was mainly due to short covering on the futures side and as expected it was used as selling opportunity by the market participants in the cash market.

On the technical side, spot Nifty hit the overhead resistance of 4953, and managed to close near it. Today's move was insignificant, and the market movement for the next few sessions, will be closely watched, in order to arrive at a meaningful conclusion.The levels to watch out for  Nifty will be 4975, 5011 & 5067 on the upside and 4888,4834 & 4801 on the downside. On the currency front, the rupee appreciated considerably and the USD-INR future closed at 53.95.

On the international front, most of the Asian and the European markets have closed deep in the red, but the U.S. markets have rebounded from their 3 month lows, on the back of better-than-forecast economic data, which offset Greece’s struggle to form a new government as the nation planned new elections. On the energy futures front, Brent crude future is trading up by 0.38% at 111.99 $/bbl, while the WTI crude future is trading down by 0.36% at 94.44 $/bbl.