SLUGGISH

The markets opened on a mildly positive note and traded with a positive bias throughout the entire trading and ultimately closed on an almost flat note. The market breadth was evenly poised with 761 advances to 731 declines. On the sectoral front there was hardly any activity, but still the Banking sector was the biggest loser for the day. On the individual stocks front Jindal Steel, Kotak Bank, Ambuja Cement, Ultratech Cement & Maruti were the top five Nifty gainers for the day, while JP Associate, NTPC, Coal India, Hind Unilever & Siemens were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 1138 crores while the DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 1224 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 564 crores and net buyers in Index options to the tune of 503 crores, while they were net buyers in Stock futures to the tune of 602 crores and net sellers in stock options to the tune of 156 crores. Nifty future settled at 5973 with just 14 points premium to the spot along with a marginal decrease in open interest. On the options side, PCR stood at 0.83, along with a decrease in India VIX by 2.40%. On the Call options side, the 6200 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 6100, 6000 & 5900 calls while on the Put options side, the 5700 put added the maximum open interest followed by the 5800 & 5900 puts. The entire activity in the cash market was once again stock specific while in the F&O space Call writing continued at the higher levels and long positions were added at the lower positions on the Put options side.

On the technical side, once again Nifty managed to close near the 5950 mark but the underlying market breadth is negative and it will be difficult to sustain this level in the day’s to come as profit booking continues in the cash market, along with shorts building up in the F&O space. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5981 and 6004 on the upside and 5944, 5930 & 5907 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee ended marginally lower today as continued weakness in local stock markets and oil refiner demand to meet crude payments outweighed dollar inflows ahead of the government’s stake sale in NTPC. The partially convertible rupee finally closed at 53.15 while the near month USD-INR future settled at 53.37 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a extremely strong note, while the European markets have closed in the red and U.S. stocks have pared losses as Apple Inc. pulled technogy shares higher tempering concern over Europe’s debt crisis before a gathering of Euro leaders tomorrow. On the Energy futures side, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading almost flat at 116.97 & 96.82 $/bbl, while the Natural gas future is trading up by 1.10% at 3.43 $?MMBtu.