DESPAIR

The markets opened on an extremely negative note and traded rangebound for the entire first half of the trading session, but the just at the start of the second half of the trading session the markets started falling with ferocity and ultimately both the indices closed with deep losses near their lowest point of the day. The market breadth also turned extremely negative with 265 advances to 1266 declines.  The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 93 and 316 points respectively. On the sectoral front, the Energy sector was the biggest loser ogainer for the day. On the individual stocks front Bharti Airtel, TCS, Infosys, Grasim & NTPC were the top five Nifty gainers, while Hindalco, Baja Auto , Ranbaxy, HDFC & Ranbaxy were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 75 crores, while DIIs were net sellers to the 85tune of  161 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 1271 crores and net buyers in Index options to the tune of 685 crores, on the other hand they were net buyers in Stock futures to the tune of 408 crores and net sellers in stock options to the tune of mere 8 crores only. Nifty future settled at 5767 with just 6 points premium to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.76, along with a rise in the India VIX by 3.77%. On the Call options side the 5800 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 & 5700 calls, while the 6100 call lost the maximum open interest followed by the 6200 & 6000 calls. On the Put options side, the 5900 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5800 & 6000 puts. The entire activity in the Cash market saw across the sector selling , while in the F&O sector it was more typical of an activity just before expiry, but still the on the Call options side, there was massive call writing in in- the -money calls , while on the Put options side, there was profit booking.

On the technical side, Nifty has broken all its short and medium term support levels amidst a bout of risk aversion in the global markets, and there seems to be no let up in the downward momentum as investors were not enthused by the Railway budget and the markets are not expecting any big announcements from the Federal budget on the 28^th of this month and the uncertainty regarding the elections in Italy is sending tremors in the global market, as a result a clutch of these factors, will keep the sentiments subdued for the next few sessions. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5816, 5840 on the upside and 5726, 5692, 5636 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee weakened today, hit by a global sell off of risk assets and month end dollar demand from importers. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 54.09, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.43 for the day.

On the international markets, the Asian and the European markets have closed in a deep sea of red , while the U.S. markets have gained amid better than estimated  housing and consumer confidence data. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading down by 1.31 & 0.52 % at 112.94 & 92.60 $/bbl respectively, and the Natural gas future is also trading down by 0.76% at 3.44 $/MMBtu.