PAUSE

The markets opened on a subdued note, but the market breadth worsened as the session progressed and ultimately both the indices closed near their lowest point of the day. The markets fell on Friday, led by declines in lenders, after recent steep gains on rate cut hopes were seen as overdone ahead of the central bank’s annual policy review next week. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 45 and 120 points respectively. The market breadth also closed on a negative note with 529 advances to 840 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Energy, FMCG, IT & Pharma sectors. On the individual e stocks front, Maruti, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, GAIL & Larsen toubro were the top five Nifty gainers, while HCL Tech, Jindal Steel, Reliance Industries, JP Associate and Hind Unilever were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 225 crores while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 378 cores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net buyers in both Index futures and Options to the tune of 290 and 16 crores respectively, while they were net sellers in both Stock futures and options to the tune of 479 and 46 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5887, with 16 points premium to the spot, along with a moderate increase in open interest. On the Options side, PCR stood at 1.15, along with a fall in the India VIX by 2.25%. On the Call options side, the 6100 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 6000, 6200 & 5900 calls, while on the Put options side, the 5400 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900, 5700 & 5800 puts. The entire activity in the F&O space indicates profit booking along with moderate increase in long positions.

On the technical side, although it was a subdued session, but Nifty still managed to close in the breakout zone, raising hope that all is not lost within a day and we may see further upside, in the coming week. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5898, 5926 on the upside and 5851, 5832, 5816 on the downside. On the currency front the Rupee fell on Friday, dragged down by month end dollar demand from importers and weak equities. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 54.37, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 54.56 for the week.

On the international markets front the Asian markets closed on a mixed note, while the European markets closed in the red ad the U.S. markets fell after the world’s largest economy grew less than economists forecast amid disappointing earnings reports. On the Energy futures front the Brent crude oil future closed at 103.16 $/bbl, while the WTI crude oil future closed unchanged at 93 $/bbl and the Natural gas future closed up by 0.55% at 4.22 $/MMBtu.