NERVOUS

Once again the benchmark indices opened with a gap down, tracking their Asian peers and traded with a negative bias throughout the day and ultimately closed very near to their lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 37 and 134 points respectively. The market breadth improved a little bit towards the end of the session, but still closed on an extremely negative note with 503 advances to 985 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest loser for the day, followed by the Energy, Auto & Metal sectors, while the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer for the day. On the individual stocks front, Cipla, Siemens, Cairn, HCL Tech & Hind Unilever were the top five Nifty gainers, while Coal India, IDFC, Tata Power, Ambuja Cement & Maruti were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 503 crores, while DIIs were net losers to the tune of 460 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in both Index futures and Options to the tune of 699 and 49 crores respectively, while they were also net sellers in Stock futures and options to the tune of 21 and 25 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5851, with just 16 points premium to the spot, along with a marginal increase in open interest. On the options side, PCR stood at 1.21, along with an increase in India VIX by 4.55%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5800 & 5900 calls, while on the Put options side; the 5600 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5500 & 5800 puts, while the 5900 put lost the maximum open interest followed by the 6000 put. The entire activity in the F&O space once again indicates shorting at higher levels on the Call options side along with addition of longs on the put options side.

On the technical side, Nifty closed with a gap down in a knee jerk reaction to the global risk sell off, while on the domestic front market participants were a bit anxious just ahead of the monetary policy review tomorrow. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5852, 5863 on the upside and 5816, 5797, 5780 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell against the dollar, tracking a fall in the global currencies after a bailout plan for Cyprus that involved taking bank deposits sent shockwaves across the financial markets. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 54.16, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.30 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian and the European markets have closed with deep losses and the U.S. markets are also trading with losses as a levy imposed by the Euro area leaders on Cypriot banks sparked concern the region’s debt crisis is intensifying. On the Energy futures front, the Brent crude oil future is trading down by 0.51% at 109.30 $/bbl, while the WTI crude oil future us trading up by 0.10% at 93.54 $/bbl and the Natural Gas future is trading up by close to a percent 1.07% at 3.91 $/MMBtu.