LACKLUSTRE

As expected, the markets opened on flat note and continued to trade range-bound till the start of the second half of the trading session, but from this point onwards the markets made an almost vertical ascent and touched their intraday highs within the first hour of the second half of the trading session and traded in the positive zone till the end of the session. The market breadth also improved considerably and ended up marginally positive with 764 advances to 730 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer, followed by the Banking and Pharma sectors, on the other hand the IT sector was the biggest looser for the day. On the individual stocks front, Hindalco, Siemens, Cipla, BHEL & Airtel were the top five Nifty gainers , while Maruti, Infosys, Sesa Goa, Power Grid, & Lupin were the top five Nifty loosers for the day. On the institutional side, there was hardly any participation with FIIs turning net buyers to the tune of mere 20 crores and DIIs turning net sellers to the tune of mere 86 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in both Index and Stock futures, to the tune of 284 & 28 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5703, with 16 points premium to the spot, along with moderate loss of open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.99, along with a fall in the India VIX by 3.58%. On the Call options side, with an exception of the 5400 & 5800 calls which added the maximum open interest, there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6000 calls. On the Put options side, the 5600 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5700 put, while 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 lack of participation from the market participants, in the absence of which profit booking continued in the Index futures and options side.

On the technical side, once again Nifty closed below the 5700 mark, with marginal increase in volumes in a complete lackluster session. Nifty has been stuck in the 100 point range from 5650 to 5750 for the last six sessions and the worse than expected corporate results are adding to the misery, resulting in complete loss of interest from the market participants, which may lead to a breakdown from these levels, very soon. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5703 & 5720 on the upside and 5660, 5640 & 5617 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee, the fell for a second consecutive session, after a stronger than expected inflation data, pushed back hopes for a rate cut, that investors had hoped. The rupee finally closed at 53.01, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 53.03 for the day.

On the International markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note, while the European markets have closed with modest gains and the U.S. markets are also trading in the green, on the back of better than estimated retail sales data and corporate earnings, which overshadowed a slump in commodity prices. On the Energy futures front, the Brent crude future is trading down by 0.08% at 113.50 $/bbl while the WTI crude futures is trading down by 1.12% at 91.26 $/bbl and the Natural Gas future is trading down by 3.42% at 3.48 $/MMBtu.