PAUSE

The markets opened on a positive note and touched their intraday highs within the first 10 minutes of the session and traded with a positive bias till the start of the second half of the trading session, but ultimately gave all their gains and touched their intraday lows till the end of the session. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 23 and 68 points respectively. The market breadth also turned negative with 678 advances to 855 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest loser followed by the IT, Energy & FMCG sectors. On the individual stocks front, Maruti, M&M, Tata Power, Bank of Baroda, & Hindalco were the top five Nifty gainers, while DLF, Axis Bank, Sesa Goa, HCL Tech & Tata Steel were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 648 crores, while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 798 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures and Options, to the tune of 369 & 100 crores respectively; on the other hand they were net sellers in Stock futures to the tune of 304 crores and net buyers in Stock options the tune of mere 6 crores. Nifty future settled at 5945 with 38 points premium to the spot, along with a marginal loss of open interest. On the Options side PCR stood at 0.91, along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.84%. 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, while on the Put options side, the 5900 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5600, 5500 & 5800 puts. The entire activity in the cash market was again sector specific, while on the F&O side there was some profit booking in both call and put options, but the overall situation still remains positive.

On the technical side, Nifty managed to close above the 5900 level for the third consecutive session, and the technical indicators on the daily and weekly charts indicate there is still more upside. Nifty needs to consolidate above this level for a few sessions in order to make a sustained upmove. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be, 5942 & 5977 on the upside and 5880, 5853 & 5818 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell, snapping three sessions of gains, dragged by the euro’s weakness but according to dealers the Rupee may gain if the government can push through more reforms in the parliament next week. The partially convertible rupee finally closed at 54.47, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.71 for the week.

On the international markets front, the Asian  and the European markets have closed on a flat note, while the U.S. markets rose for a third day as faster than forecast growth in jobs overshadowed concerns about budget negotiations. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures closed almost flat at 107.02 & 85.93 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural Gas future closed down by 3.14% at 3.55 $/MMBtu.