MUTED

The markets opened on a negative note and continued to trade with a negative bias throughout the day, except for a brief period when the markets managed to recover all their losses and traded in the positive zone for close to an hour, but eventually slipped once again and closed near their lowest point of the day. The market breadth also closed on a negative note with 676 advances to 815 declines. On the sectoral front, there was hardly any activity, but still the Energy sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Midcap and Infra sectors. On the individual stocks front, Ranbaxy, BPCL, Bank of Baroda, Infosys & Dr. Reddy were the top five Nifty gainers for the day, while Bharti Airtel, Sesa Goa, Sterlite, IDFC & PNB were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 97 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 230 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures to the tune of 184 crores, and net sellers in Stock futures to the tune of 214 crores. Nifty future settled at 5431, with 18 points premium to the spot, along with a moderate fall in open interest. On the Options side, PCR increased to 1.28, along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.84%. On the Call options side, with an exception of the 5500 call, there was uniform loss of open interest from 4600 to 5600 calls. On the Put options side, the 5400 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5200 & 5500 puts, while the 5000 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 4900 & 4800 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as the F&O markets indicates, mild profit booking and further hedging of long positions.

On the technical side, Nifty once again managed to close above the 5400 mark, albeit on falling volumes but still it is trading above most of its short and long term exponential moving averages and not much is to be read in today’s fall, unless this trend continues for few more sessions. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5432, 5449 & 5471 on the upside and 5393, 5374 & 5342 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee rose marginally in lackluster trade as a nationwide bank strike affected volumes but small dollar sales from foreign banks and a steady euro helped the rupee notch up some gains. The rupee finally settled at 55.49, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.50 for the day.

On the international market front, the Asian and the European markets have closed deep in the red, and the U.S. markets are also trading in the red, on the back of disappointing economic data and anxiety before the release of Fed minutes for clues of future monetary policy. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading almost flat, after the data showed a unexpected fall in the U.S. crude oil inventories. The Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading at 114.50 & 97.01 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural gas future is trading up by 1.05% at 2.80 $/MMBtu.