LACKLUSTRE

The markets opened on a flat note, and continued to trade with a negative bias till the end of the first half of the trading session, but from this point the markets started falling and with the more than an hour left for the end of the day’s session the markets touched their intraday lows but from this point onwards the markets made up an almost V shaped recovery but ultimately ended up almost flat for the week. The market breadth also ended up extremely weak with 647 advances to 841 declines. On the sectoral front, there was hardly any activity, with most of the sectors ending up marginally positive or negative. On the individual stocks front, Asian Paint, Bhel, HCL Tech, Hero Motocorp & Hind Unilever were the top five Nifty gainers, while Ranbaxy, NTPC, Gail, Grasim & Cipla were the top five Nifty losers of the day. On the institutional side FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 366 crores and the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 184 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures to the tune of mere 14 crores and net sellers in Index Options to the tune of 187 crores, while they were net sellers in both Stock futures and Options to the tune of 99 and 42 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5633, with just 6 points premium to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.98, along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.54%. On the Call options side, except the 5700 call, 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 story was the same, where there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6000 puts. The entire activity in the cash market was restricted to stock specific level, while in the F&O side, the entire action is shifting to the new series.

On the technical side, it was a listless session, but Nifty managed to close above the 5600 level for the third consecutive session on very low volumes. Nifty has been consolidating in the range of 5570 to 5640 for the last five sessions and as long as it trades above the 5600 level, it is safe to assume that the way the global markets are supportive, Nifty may well be on its way up. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5645 & 5664 on the upside and 5600, 5574 and 5555 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell to its two month lows on Friday, weighed down by persistent dollar buying by all companies. The partially convertible Rupee closed at 55.53, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.58 for the week.

On the international markets front, the Asian, European & U.S. markets have all closed on a very positive note. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures have closed up by 0.75 & 1.03% at 111.38 and 88.28 $/bbl respectively while the Natural Gas future closed down by 0.05% at 3.90 $/MMBtu.