BREATHER

The markets opened on a positive note, but could not sustain their positive momentum after the initial one hour of trade and from that point onwards, the markets started trading with a negative bias throughout the day and ultimately both the indices closed almost flat.  The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 9 & 35 points respectively. The market breadth was however positive with 938 advances to 588 declines. On the sectoral front there was hardly any activity, but the Banking sector was the biggest loser followed by the FMCG sector. On the individual stocks front, ACC, Ultratech Cement, SBIN, BHEL & Reliance Industries were the top five Nifty gainers, while HDFC Bank, IDFC, Bharti Airtel, GAIL & HCL Tech were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, there was subdued activity today, where the FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 303 crores ad the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 336 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, the story was the same  where FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 251 crores and net buyers in Index Options to the tune of 646 crores, while they were net sellers in both Stock futures and Options to the tune of 73 & 104 crores respectively.  Nifty future settled at 5911, with 40 points premium to the spot, along with a marginal increase in open interest. On the Index options side, PCR stood at 1.01, along with a rise in the India VIX by 3.10%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 call, while there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 5800 calls. On the Put Options side, the 5500 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5800, 5700 & 5900 puts. The entire activity in the cash as well as F&O space indicates sector and stock specific profit booking along with addition of longs on the higher side of the market.

On the technical side,  spot Nifty came striking close to 5900 level and ultimately closed very near to it, although some profit booking is bound to happen at these levels, the undercurrent is still very strong and it may take a few more sessions to establish, whether an intermediate top formation has taken place or there is still more upside left. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5895 & 5919 on the upside and 5850, 5829 & 5807 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee snapped its three session winning streak as importers including oil and gold firms increased dollar purchases, while weak domestic markets failed to offer much respite. The partially convertible Rupee closed at 54.77, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.90 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note, while the European markets have closed almost flat, and the U.S. markets which rose earlier today on the back of encouraging Chinese manufacturing data and Greece’s debt buyback offer, are trading unchanged right now as an unexpected drop in American factory index offset a gain in China manufacturing. On the Energy futures front, the Brent crude oil future is trading down by 0.15% at 111.06 $/bbl, while the WTI crude oil future is trading up by 0.40% at 89.27$/bbl and the Natural Gas future is trading up by 1.31%  at 3.60 $/MMBtu.