SOMBRE

The markets opened on an absolutely flat note, but immediately entered the negative zone and traded rangebound till the start of the second half of the trading session, but post that point onwards, the markets started falling with ferocity and ultimately both the indices ended deep in the red, at their lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 36 and 111 points respectively. On the sectoral front, the Energy sector was the biggest loser followed by the Midcap, Banking, Auto & Pharma sectors. On the individual stocks front the GAIL, Hind Unilever, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel & Asian Paint were the top five Nifty gainers while Siemens, Bharti Airtel, Power Grid, BPCL & Wipro were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 321 crores while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 289 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of  390 crores and net buyers in Index Options to the tune of 289 crores, while they were net buyers in Stock futures and Options to the tune of 339 & 66.68 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5900 with mere 3 points premium to the spot along with a considerable increase in open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 0.96, along with a marginal fall in the India VIX by 0.33%. On the Call options side the 6000 call added the maximum open interest followed by the 5900, 6100 & 5800 calls, while the 6200 call lost the maximum open interest. On the Put options side the 5600 put lost the maximum open interest followed by the 6000, 5900 & 6100 calls, while the 5500 put added the maximum open interest. The entire activity in the cash markets saw across the sector selling while in the F&O space the FIIs continued to add on to their short positions in index futures and options.

On the technical side, Nifty had been holding on to the 5900 mark for the last two session but could not do the same today and finally closed just below that level once again, confirming the downtrend which has set in more than two weeks back. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5929 & 5963 on the upside and 5873 & 5856 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell today tracking losses in the domestic market but dollar demand from oil refiners was largely met by supply from exporters, preventing further slide. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 53.92 for the day, and the USD-INR future settled at 54.05 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a positive note while the European markets have ended in the red and U.S. stocks are trading little changed after paring earlier losses, as drop in jobless claims as Warren Buffet’s deal for H.J. Heinz Co. tempered concern over shrinking economies in Europe and Japan. On the energy futures front, both Brent and WTI crude oil futures traded almost flat at 117.97 and 97.42 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural gas futures is trading down by 4.28% at 3.16 $/MMBtu.