IMPATIENT

The markets opened on a very flat note, but after the initial two hours of trade, the markets finally started trading in the negative zone and traded in a narrow range for the next four hours and with just half an hour left for the end of the day’s session the markets fell almost vertically and ended at their lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 28 and 93 points respectively. The market breadth was marginally positive with 841 advances to 683 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest loser followed by the Banking sector while the Metal, Pharma & IT sectors closed marginally in the positive zone. On the individual stocks front, BPCL, Maruti, Cipla, Tata Steel & Cairn were the top five Nifty gainers, while LT, JP Associate, HDFC, Hind Unilever & HDFC Bank were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 963 crores and DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 901 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 185 crores and net buyers in Index options to the tune of 430 crores while they were net sellers in both Stock futures and Options to the tune of 367 and 103 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 6024 with 36 points premium to the spot, along with a a considerable loss of open interest. On the Options side PCR stood at 0.95, along with a rise in the India VIX by 4.11%. On the Call options side, the 6100 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 6200 call, while there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6000 calls. On the Put options side, only the 5900 put added the maximum open interest, while there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6200 puts. The activity in the Cash markets was stock specific, while there was some profit booking in sectors which had a fared better than other sectors in the short term. On the F&O side, the profit booking continued for the second consecutive session amidst absence of any fresh triggers.

On the technical side, Nifty could not hold on to the 6000 mark and finally closed at 5988 just below the resistance level of 5991, which in fact formed a bearish engulfing pattern on the candlestick chart, indicating that the bears might take over from this point onwards, if there is no serious pullback tomorrow. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 6027, 6067 on the upside and 5962, 5931 & 5914 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell to an over one month low today, extending its losing streak to a third session, dragged down by a steady demand of dollar form the oil refiners and fall in local shares. The partially convertible rupee finally closed at 55.23, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 55.47 for the day.

On the international markets front, both the Asian and the European markets have closed in the red, and the U.S. markets are also trading with losses ahead of the corporate earnings season starting tomorrow. On the Energy futures front both the Brent and WTI crude futures are trading almost flat at 111.11 & 93.02 $/bbl respectively and the Natural Gas future is trading marginally up by 0.44% at 3.30 $/MMBtu.