DIRECTIONLESS

The benchmark indices opened on an absolutely flat note, and traded in a very narrow range throughout the day and ultimately closed almost flat at the end of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 3 points each. The market breadth was extremely negative with 500 advances to 1010 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest gainer followed by the FMCG sector, while the Pharma sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Midcap and IT sectors. On the individual stocks front, ONGC, Tata Motors, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank & HDFC Bank were the top five Nifty gainers and Ultratech Cement, Ambuja Cement, BHEL, Sesa Goa & Hindalco were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 249 crores and DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 433 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures and options to the tune of mere 54 and 377 crores respectively, while they were net sellers in Stock futures and Options to the tune of 362 & 25 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 6003 with 35 points premium to the spot along with a considerable increase in open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.98, along with a marginal decrease in the India VIX by 0.38%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call was the only call which added open interest, while there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6200 calls. On the Put Options side, the 5700 put added the maximum open interest followed by the 5800, 5900 & 6100 puts. The entire activity in the cash market was sector specific while in the F&O space profit booking continued on the Call options side along with corresponding addition of longs on the Put options side. Although the market closing was flat, but the market breadth is getting worse day by day, indicating tough times ahead of the corporate  results season.

On the technical side, Nifty closed below the 6000 mark once again with marginal increase in volumes and continued to stay rangebound for the third consecutive session and any further move will depend as the results season warms up. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5999 and 6022 on the upside and 5948, 5936 & 5915 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee rose for a third straight session as continued capital inflows helped absorb steady dollar demand from oil refiners. The Rupee finally closed at 54.56 while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.78 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian and the European markets have closed on a fairly positive note and the U.S. markets are also trading with gains as China’s exports beat estimates and ECB president Mario Draghi sees an economic rebound in late 2013. On the Energy futures front, both Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading up by 0.60 & 1.01% at 112.42 and 94.03 $/bbl respectively and the Natural Gas future is also trading up by  1.94% at 3.17 $/MMBtu.