ANTICIPATION

Once again the markets opened on a very flat note, and gave away all their gains within the next 45 minutes and traded in the negative zone for the next two hours, but surprisingly recovered all their losses and traded range-bound till the end of the session, and ultimately both the indices ended on a flat note. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, up by 4 and 22 points respectively. The market breadth managed to stay marginally positive, with 777 advances to 706 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer for the day, while the Metal and Auto sectors were the biggest losers for the day. On the individual stocks front, Kotak Bank, Bhel, Cipla, Hind Unilever & ITC were the top five Nifty gainers for the day while Jindal Steel, Cairn, Axis Bank, JP Associate and Sterlite Industries were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side surprisingly, the FIIs were net buyers to the tune of a massive 5845 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 1374 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, the FIIs were net buyers in Index futures, to the tune of 645 crores and net sellers in Stock futures, to the tune of 610 crores. Nifty future settled at 5683 with just 9 points premium to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the options side PCR stood at 1.03, along with a massive fall in the India VIX by 9.13 %. On the Call options side, except the 5800 call, which added the maximum open interest, there was uniform loss of open interest from 4900 to 5900 calls and the story was same on the Put options side, where except the 5700 put, there was uniform loss of open interest, from the 4900 to 5900 puts. The entire activity in the F&O space is the same every month, just before the expiry, when positions are rolled over and the action shifts to the new series, but in the spot market the massive buy figures on the FII side adds credence to the fact, that the under current is still very strong.

On the technical side, Nifty was in a indecision period today and managed to stay above the 5600 mark, for the third consecutive session with increasing volumes, and the way things are shaping up on the F&O and cash markets side, the conditions are apt for the next up-move, once the new series begins. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5700, 5727 &  5751 on the upside and 5650, 5625 & 5598 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee rose today as foreign fund flows in stocks remained strong after the government fast tracked the fiscal and economic reforms. The Rupee finally settled at 53.36, while the   near month USD-INR future, which expires tomorrow also settled at 53.36 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian and the European markets have closed with decent gains and the U.S. markets after trading in the green on the back of better than estimated consumer confidence data and housing data have erased their gains after the comments by the President of Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia said the “central bank’s new bond-buying program probably won’t boost growth”. On the energy futures front, the Brent crude oil future is trading almost flat at 109.81 $/bbl, while the WTI crude oil future is trading down by close to a percent at 91.29 $/bbl on the other hand the Natural Gas future is trading up by 1.22% at 3.07 $/MMBtu.