DECEPTION

The markets opened on a flat note but continued to trade with a positive bias throughout the trading session, but ultimately both the indices closed on a flat note. The Nifty and the Sensex closed up by 3 and 7 points respectively. The market breadth was marginally positive with 787 advances to 697 declines. On the sectoral front, there was hardly any activity, but still the FMCG sector was the biggest loser followed by the Banking sector, while the Energy sector was the biggest gainer for the day. On the individual stocks front, DLF, Ambuja Cement, Reliance, BPCL & HCL Tech were the top five Nifty gainers while IDFC, Tata Steel, Cipla, Jindal Steel & Bharti Airtel were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the Institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 433 crores while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 591 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures and Options to the tune of 365 and 133 crores respectively, and net buyers in Stock futures and options to the tune of 128 and 51 crores respectively. Nifty futures settled at 5964 with 21 points premium to the spot along with a marginal increase in open interest. On the options side PCR stood at 1.01, along with a fall in the India VIX by 1.33%.  On the Call options side, the 6200 call added the maximum open interest, while the 5800 call lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 6000 call. On the Put options side, the 5700 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5600 & 5900 & 6200 puts. The entire activity in the Cash markets was once again stock specific, while in the F&O space profit booking took place in both the call and put options side, which kept the markets in the green.

On the technical side, once again Nifty managed to close convincingly above the 5900 mark on rising volumes, prompting the participants to square of some of their short positions. In such situation the levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5963, 5984 on the upside and 5923, 5906 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee gained its most in two weeks, today largely aided by inflows related to a debt auction. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 54.07, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.18 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a relatively positive note, while the European markets have closed on a weak note and U.S. stocks are also trading with losses as investors weighed lower than expected housing starts data. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading down by 1.55 & 2.22% at 115.69 & 94.92 $/bbl respectively. On the other hand Natural gas future is trading up by 0.47% at 3.28 $/MMBtu.