DOWNTREND

As expected the markets opened on a very flat note, but instantly entered the negative zone and traded range-bound, till the start of the second half of the trading session and from this point onwards the markets fell almost vertically and touched their lowest point of the day within the next two hours, but made a smart recovery and tried to recover their losses, but ultimately both the indices closed near the lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, down by 16 and 47 points respectively. The market breadth worsened and finally closed with just 352 advances to 1121 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Metal, Midcap & Auto sectors, on the other hand the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer followed by the IT sector. On the Individual stocks front, Power Grid, TCS, Asian Paint, NTPC & Sun Pharma were the top five Nifty gainers for the day, while Sterlite, Jindal Steel, JP Associate, Hindalco & Sesa Goa were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, the FIIs were net buyers to the tune of a mere 93 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 314 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, the FIIs were net buyers in Index futures to the tune of 434 crores, and net sellers in Stock futures to the tune of a whooping 582 crores. The combined turnover in NSE’s cash and future’s market was 1,74,3163 crores. Nifty future settled at 5346, with just 11 points premium to the spot, along with a massive loss of open interest. On the Options side PCR fell to 1.05, along with a fall in the India VIX by 0.73%. On the Call options side, the 5400 call saw the maximum call writing followed by the 5500,5300 & 4800 calls, while on the Put options side, 5300 put saw the maximum put writing, followed by the 5100, 5200 & 5000 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as the F&O markets shows massive profit booking, along with some opportunistic call and put writing, just before the F&O expiry on Thursday.

On the technical side, Nifty broke the crucial support level of 5350, and looking at the sell figures in the cash as well as the futures markets, there seems to no letup in the selling pressure and the levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5358, 5382 on the upside and 5311, 5297 & 5264 on the downside. On the currency front the Rupee closed almost unchanged as gains in the euro provided support, although worries about a slowdown in the domestic economy, continued to weigh on the Rupee. The rupee finally settled at 55.66, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.67 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian and the European markets have closed in the red, while the U.S. markets are trading with very little change, on the back of mixed economic data and anxious wait for the Fed chairman’s speech on economy, three days from today. On the energy futures front, the Brent future is trading almost flat at 112.25 $/bbl, while the WTI future is trading up by 0.78% at 96.19 $/bbl and the Natural Gas future is trading down by 1.14% at 2.64 $/MMBtu.