EXCITED

The markets opened on a flat note, and continued to trade with a downward bias, for the first half of the trading session but as the news of better than expected inflation figures, and robust indirect tax collections hit the market, the sentiment changed instantly and the markets recovered all their losses at the start of second half of the trading session and ultimately both the indices closed near their highest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, up by 32 and 95 points respectively. The market breadth also improved significantly and ultimately managed to close on a marginally positive note with 761 advances to 710 declines. On the sectoral front, Banking sector was the biggest gainer followed by the Energy and FMCG sectors. On the individual stocks front, Ranbaxy, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, IDFC & Jindal Steel were the top five Nifty gainers for the day, while Sun Pharma, HDFC, Siemens, BPCL & Bajaj Auto were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, both the FIIs and DIIs were net buyers to the tune of 258 and 76 crores respectively in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures to the tune of 289 crores and net sellers in the Stock futures to the tune of 428 crores. Nifty future settled at 5407 with 27 points premium to the spot, along with a considerable increase in open interest. On the Option side, the PCR fell to 1.21, along with a fall in the India VIX by 2.31%. On the Call option side, the 5400 call lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5300, 5200 & 5100 calls, while 5600 & 5500 calls added the maximum open interest. On the Put options side, the 4900 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5100 & 4700 puts, on the other hand the 5300 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5400 & 5000 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as the F&O space indicates addition of fresh longs along with profit booking on the options side.

On the technical side, as suggested two days back, Nifty managed to close at the 5380 mark, with increase in volumes and for the fifth consecutive session it stayed above the 5300 mark, indicating it may be finally on the verge of breaking out of the trading range and with almost all factors, i.e technical and fundamental supportive for this upmove, the levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5405, 5424 & 5461 on the upside, and 5343, 5306 and 5287 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell to its lowest level in more than a week, after a rise in core inflation, tempered expectations for a interest rate cut, while a widening trade deficit highlighted the woes facing the currency. The rupee finally settled at 55.65, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.84 for the day. The Indian markets were closed today, due to Independence Day holiday.

On the international markets front, the Asian and European markets have closed in the red, while the U.S. markets are trading almost flat. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading on a strongly positive note, at 114.55 & 94.69 $/bbl, on the back of unexpected fall in U.S. crude oil inventories, while the Natural Gas future is trading down by 2.98% at 2.74 $/MMBtu.