ELATED

The markets opened with a gap up, tracking their Asian peers but strangely the markets could not capitalize on their gains and stayed range-bound for the entire trading session and ultimately both the indices closed near their day’s high. The Nifty and the Sensex closed up by 26 and 94 points respectively. On the sectoral front, the IT sector was the biggest gainer, followed by the Energy and Metal sectors. On the individual stocks front, Cairn India, BPCL, Infosys, IDFC & BHEL were the star performers of the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 126 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 229 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, surprisingly the FIIs were net buyers in both the Index and Stock futures, to the tune of 656 and 112 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5257, along with a moderate loss in open interest. On the options side, the PCR increased to 1.15, along with a massive fall in the India VIX by 6.08%. On the Call options side, the 5200 call lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5300, 5600 & 5000 calls, while the 5400 call added the maximum open interest. On the Put option side, the 5000 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 4900 & 5100 puts, on the other hand the 5200 put added the maximum open interest followed by the 5300 put. The activity in the cash as well F&O space, indicates massive short covering along with addition of fresh long positions, particularly by the FIIs in the cash markets and the fall in the volatility levels augur well for the markets in the short term and any positive news flow within the next few sessions may spark a short term rally for the markets.

On the technical side, Nifty managed to close above the 5200 level and came within a striking distance of closing above the elusive 5250 mark, along with increase in volumes. Its premature to say that the trend has changed, but the data suggests things are changing for the better. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5256, 5269 & 5281 on the upside and 5231 & 5217 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee gained after a sharp recovery in the euro prompted the foreign banks to sell dollars, while the rise in the domestic shares, spurred the domestic banks to sell dollars however the good dollar demand from defence and oil companies, limited what could have been a sharp rise in the rupee. The rupee finally settled at 55.12, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.19 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian and the European markets have closed on a firm note but strangely the U.S. markets are also trading on a positive note even after a series of disappointing economic data, amidst better than estimated corporate earnings and speculation that dismal economic data will prompt the Federal Reserve to add stimulus. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude futures are trading with considerable gains at 107.78 & 93.04 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural gas future is trading almost flat at 2.97 $/MMBtu.