DIRECTIONLESS

The markets continued their zig zag movement, with days of marginal positive and negative closes, and once again opened on a very flat note, and continued to trade range-bound till the end of the first-half of the trading session, but immediately at the start of the second half of the trading session, the markets started falling sharply and with just one hour left for the end of the day’s session, the markets touched their intraday lows and ultimately both the indices closed near their day’s low, till the end of the session. The Nifty and the Sensex closed, down by 34 & 110 points respectively for the week. The market breadth was also negative with 1388 advances to 1798 declines. On the sectoral front, the Metals sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Capital goods, Banking and Auto sectors. On the individual stocks front, ITC, Ambuja Cement, HCL Tech, Dr. Reddy’s & DLF were the top five gainers for the day, while Hindalco, Jindal Steel, BPCL, Gail & Grasim were the top five losers for the day. On the Institutional side, there was hardly any participation, with both FIIs and DIIs turning net buyers to the tune of mere 80 & 112 crores respectively in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, the story was the same, with FIIs turning net sellers, both In Index and Stock futures, to the tune of 282 & 26 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5688, with just 4 points premium to the spot, along with a massive loss of open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.96, along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.49%. On the Call options side, 5800 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5700 call, while there was uniform loss of open interest, from the 5000 to 6000 calls, while on the Put Options side, there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6000 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as F&O markets indicates, that only sector specific buying is taking place in the cash markets, while in  the F&O markets, the activity is clearly shifting to the next series and the rollovers have started gathering pace.

On the technical side, spot Nifty settled below the elusive 5700 mark once again, with a big spike in volume and continued to trade in the range of 5630 to 5720 for the eighth consecutive session. The global headwinds are also making things difficult. It makes a perfect case for a breakdown and the levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5710 & 5737 on the upside and 5654, 5633 & 5609 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee posted its biggest weekly decline in four months, on the back of huge dollar buying from state run oil and defence companies, along with demand from foreign banks. The partially convertible rupee, finally closed at 53.84, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 53.99 for the week.

On the international markets front, except the Asian markets, the European and the U.S. markets closed deep in the red for the week. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude futures closed, down by 2.03% & 2.23% at 110.14 & 90.05 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural Gas future closed, up by 0.84% at 3.61 $/MMBtu for the week.