ANTICIPATION

The markets opened on a very quite note, and traded range-bound for the entire session, except for the last half an hour when the markets made some quick gains and closed near their highest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed up by 20 and 55 points respectively. The market breadth which was positive throughout the day, ended up marginally positive with 791 advances to 690 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest gainer followed by the Pharma and Energy sectors. On the individual stocks front, Cipla, Asian Paint, Ambuja Cement, ACC & Ranbaxy were the top five Nifty gainers while IDFC, Rel Infra, Maruti, Hindalco & Tata Motors were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 175 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 222 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in both Index futures and options to the tune of 155 & 1038 crores respectively and net sellers in Stock futures and options, to the tune of 21 & 193 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5766 with 42 points premium to the spot, along with a marginal increase in open interest. On the options side PCR stood at 0.80, along with a increase in the India VIX by 3.9%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5800 & 5900 calls, while the 5700 call lost the maximum open interest followed by the 5600 call. On the Put options side, the 5800 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5700 & 5600 puts, while the 5300 put lost the maximum open interest. The entire activity in the cash markets was again restricted to stock and sector specific, along with profit booking, ahead of the major international event tomorrow, while in the F&O markets there was some addition of long positions in Index futures and call options along with put writing at higher levels, indicating that the market participants are expecting a favorable outcome to tomorrow’s event.

On the technical side, Nifty managed to close once again above the 5700 mark and maintained Friday’s gap up closing for the second consecutive session and tomorrow’s session will decide the markets short term trend. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5738, 5753 & 5775 on the upside and 5701, 5676 & 5669 on the downside.  On the currency front, the Rupee recovered from its one and a half month lows, to close stronger, boosted by corporate dollar sales and a mild recovery in the domestic markets. The partially convertible rupee finally closed at 54.43, while the near month USD-INR future closed 54.71 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note, while the European markets have closed on a positive note and the U.S. market are also trading higher for the second straight day, as American voters go to the polls to pick a U.S. president. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude futures are trading up by 2.27 & 2.67% at 110.19 & 87.95 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural Gas future is trading marginally up by 0.21% at 3.56 $/MMBtu.