POINTLESS

The benchmark indices opened on a flat note and continued trade rangebound for the initial two hours and at one point of time the markets briefly entered the negative zone, but form that point onwards the markets started rising slowly and with every passing hour the markets gradually strengthened and ultimately both the indices closed very near to their highest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed up by 36 and 137 points respectively. The market breadth also managed to close in the positive with 824 advances to 694 declines. On the sectoral front the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer followed by the Banking, Energy and Infra sectors, while the IT sector was the biggest loser for the day. On the individual stocks front, JP Associates, LT, Bharti Airtel, M&M & DLF were the top five Nifty gainers, while Ranbaxy, Power Grid, GAIL, Infosys & Siemens were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, there was hardly any activity, with both FIIs and DIIs turning net buyers to the tune of 106 & 25 crores respectively in the cash markets.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in Index futures to the tune of just 1 crore, while they were net sellers in Index Options to the tune of 1303 crores, and they were net buyers in both Stock futures and Options to the tune of 1149 and 187 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5798 with just 1 point premium to the spot, along with a considerable loss of open interest, while the Nifty March future settled at 28 points premium to the spot along with a massive addition of open interest. On the Options side PCR stood at 0.80, along with a fall of 6.51% in the India VIX. On the Call options side, except the 5900 & 6000 call there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6200 calls, while on the Put options side, there was uniform loss of open interest from the 5000 to 6200 puts. In the March series the 6000 call has added the maximum open interest followed by the 6100, 6200 & 5900 calls, while on the Put options side the 5800 put has added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5700, 5600 & 5900 puts. The entire activity in the cash market was stock specific, while in the F&O side, it was mainly rollover activity which dominated the entire session.

On the technical side, Nifty somehow managed to close in the positive mainly on the back of short positions being squared off and rolled over to the next series and the positive close should be just seen as a F&O led pullback with no support from the institutional side. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be, 5826, 5856 on the upside and 5757, 5718 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee rose today, on optimism that the government will deliver a fiscally disciplined budget, attracting more foreign flows in to the country. The Rupee finally closed at 53.86, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.17 for the day. 

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note while the European markets have closed on a positive note and the U.S. markets are trading in the green amid economic optimism after better than estimated housing data. On the Energy futures front, the Brent crude oil future is trading almost flat 112.44 $/bbl while the WTI crude oil future is trading up by 0.31 % at 92.92 $/bbl and the Natural gas future is trading up by 1.69% at 3.51 $/MMBtu.