MUTED

The markets opened on a very weak note, tracking their Asian peers, and traded range-bound for the entire session and ultimately both the benchmark indices closed down with minor losses. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, down by 10 & 62 points respectively. The market breadth was negative throughout the day, but managed to close evenly balanced with 732 advances to 751 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer for the day, while the rest of the sectors closed marginally in the positive or with minor losses. On the individual stocks front, Ambuja Cement, ACC, Cipla, Axis Bank and HeromotoCorp were the top five Nifty gainers for the day, while Bharti Airtel, Coal India, IDFC, Hindalco, & Tata Motors were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 688 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 696 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures, to the tune of 400 crores, and net sellers in Stock futures, to the tune of 769 crores. Nifty September Future settled at 5670, while the October series Nifty future settled at 5697 with 34 points premium to the spot, along with a massive addition of open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 1.01, along with a marginal fall in the India VIX by 0.86%. On the Call options side the maximum open interest build up in the October series, has happened at the 5800 call, followed  by the 5700 & 5900 calls, while on the Put options side, the maximum open interest buildup has happened at the 5500 put, followed by the 5400, 5300 & 5200 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as the F&O markets indicates that the action has shifted towards the futures expiry and the rollovers, mostly long are at their peak.

On the technical side, Nifty is still holding, fairly above the 5600 mark, for the fourth consecutive session, and as suggested a few days back, it will stay range-bound till expiry, before making any further moves. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5677, 5692 & 5711 on the upside and 5643, 5624 & 5609 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell today on the back of dollar demand from the oil refiners and dealers awaiting the government’s borrowing plans for the second-half of the year. The Rupee finally closed at 53.51, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 53.75 for the day.

On the international markets front, it was a sea of red as the Asian and the European markets have closed with deep cuts and the U.S. markets are also trading with loses on the back of unexpected fall in U.S. home sales figures and concerns about the worsening Eurozone debt crisis. On the Energy futures front, surprisingly the Brent Crude oil future is trading down by 0.81%at 109.56 $/bbl, while the WTI crude oil future is trading down by 2.06% at 89.50 $/bbl, even after a fall in the U.S. weekly crude oil inventories, on the other hand the Natural Gas future is trading up by 2.79% at  3.19 $/MMBtu.