DOWNTREND

The markets opened with a gap down and continued to trade with a strong negative bias throughout the entire trading session and ultimately both the indices closed very near to their lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 30 and 91 points respectively. The market breadth was also extremely negative with 433 advances to 1074 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest loser for the day, followed by the Banking and Midcap sectors, while the Pharma sector was the sole gainer for the day. On the individual stocks front, Sun Pharma, Ambuja Cement, ACC, Ranbaxy & GAIL were the top five Nifty gainers, while JP Associate, BHEL, Bank of Baroda, Bharti Airtel & BPCL were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 489 crores, while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 1074 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 663 crores and net buyers in Index options to the tune of 1278 crores, while they were net buyers in Stock futures to the tune of 184 crores and net sellers in stock options to the tune of mere 5 crores. Nifty future settled at 5974 with just 17 points premium to the spot along with a marginal decrease in open interest. On the Options side PCR stood at 0.95, along with a rise in the India VIX by 1.88%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 6100, 5900 & 6200 calls and on the Put option side, the 5600 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900, 5700 & 5800 puts, while the 6000 put lost the maximum open interest. The entire activity in the cash markets was once again stock specific, while in the F&O space, the market participants continued to add on to their short positions adding misery to a already weak market.

On the technical side, Nifty closed precariously near to the psychological mark of 5950 and with profit booking happening in most of the sectors coupled with weak sentiments in the international markets, it makes the downside more probable. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5968 & 5981 on the upside and 5920, 5895 & 5841 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee strengthened to its highest closing level in three and a half months today, helped by foreign inflows ahead of the government stake sale in NTPC, although weak domestic shares and demand for dollars from oil importers limited gains. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 53.13, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 53.35 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed deep in the red, while the European markets have closed on a positive note and the U.S. markets are also trading in the green on the back of better than forecast earnings. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading up by 1.27 & 0.70% at 117.06 & 96.87 $/bbl respectively and the Natural Gas future is also trading up by 1.25% at 3.35 $/MMBtu.