INDECISION

The markets opened on a fairly optimistic note for the third consecutive session buoyed by the better than expected corporate results from the heavyweights and touched their two year highs today but the undertone was not very optimistic, which was reflected in the advance decline ratio of 690 advances to 822 declines. The Nifty and the Sensex finally closed up by 18 and 63 points respectively. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer, followed by the Energy and Infra sectors. On the individual stocks front, Reliance Infra, BHEL, Reliance Industries, Larsen Toubro & Bharti Airtel were the top five Nifty gainers, while DLF, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors & TCS were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 843 crores and DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 890 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in both Index futures and Options, to the tune of 82 and 310 crores respectively, while they were net buyers in Stock futures and Options to the tune of 240 and 33 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 6096 with just 14 points premium to the spot, along with a marginal increase in open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 1.12 along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.66%. On the Call options side, except the 6100 call there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6200 calls, while on the Put options side the 6100 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 6000 and 6200 puts, while the 5600 put lost the maximum open interest. The entire activity in the cash market was once again sector specific, while in the F&O space profit booking continued in the options space along with marginal put writing at higher levels.

On the technical side, Nifty touched yet another milestone and there seems to be no stopping from here, but the underlying market breadth is not supportive of the upmove and the DIIs are continuing with their selling spree adding the element of skepticism and doubt as a result market participants are hesitant to participate at these levels. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be, 6095, 6109 & 6124 on the upside and  6051 & 6013 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell today snapping two sessions of gains, due to sustained dollar demand from oil refiners. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 53.76 and the near month USD-INR future closed at 53.97 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note, while the European markets closed higher today as euro-area finance ministers met to address the region’s debt crisis and the U.S. markets are also trading in the green on the back of optimism from the Eurozone. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading almost flat at 111.64 & 95.73 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural Gas future is trading up by 1.77% at 3.62 $/MMBtu.