The markets opened with a big gap up
on the back of better than estimated CAD numbers and policy reforms announced
by the government. In fact such a huge opening rally took everyone by surprise
and the momentum built at the start of the session continued to strengthen with
every passing hour and ultimately the markets managed to close near their
highest point of the day, till the end of the session. The Nifty and the Sensex
closed up by 160 and 520 points respectively. The market breadth was also
positive with 1011 advances to 377 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking
sector was the biggest gainer, followed by the Energy, Midcap, Pharma &
Auto sectors. On the individual stocks front, Jindal Steel, BHEL, BPCL,
Reliance Infra and Tata Power were the top five Nifty gainers while Ranbaxy, HCL
Tech, Hind Unilever and Ultratech Cement were the top four Nifty losers for the
day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net buyers to the tune of 1124
crores, while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 581 crores in the cash
market.
On the derivatives side, FIIs were net
buyers in both Index futures and options to the tune of 1692 & 1169 crores
respectively, while they were also net buyers in both Stock futures and options
to the tune of 688 and 12 crores respectively. Nifty future settled at 5841,
with 1 point discount to the spot, along with a considerable increase in open
interest. On the options side, PCR stood at 1.06, along with a fall in the India
VIX by 4.77%. On the Call options side, the 6000 call added the maximum open
interest, followed by the 5900 & 6100 calls, while the 5600 call shed the
maximum open interest, followed by the 5700 & 5500 calls. On the Put
Options side, the 5800 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5700,
5300, 5500 & 5900 puts. The entire activity in the F&O space saw addition
of long positions in the Index future along with addition of longs on the call
options side and put writing happening at the higher levels of the market.
On the technical side, although it can
be termed as an extremely sharp pullback from the extremely oversold levels,
but the decent buy figures from the FIIs side add credence to the sharp rise and
raises hopes of a further pullback from these levels, but much of it will depend on
the international news flow and further policy measures announced by the
government on the domestic front. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be
5712, 5739, 5771 on the upside and 5641, 5601 on the downside. On the currency
front the Rupee posted its biggest daily gain in nine months on Friday, fuelled
by the robust rally in local stocks and the government’s move to raise gas prices
for the first time in three years also aiding sentiment. The partially convertible
Rupee, finally closed at 59.38, while the near month USD-INR future settled at
59.74 for the day.
On the International markets front,
the Asian markets closed on a positive note, while the European markets closed
in the red and the U.S. markets also fell after the biggest three day rally
since January as investors weighed economic data and stimulus comments from
Federal Reserve officials. On the Energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI
crude oil futures closed down by 0.64 & 0.50% at 102.16 & 96.56 $/bbl
respectively, and the Natural gas future also closed down by 0.47% at 3.57 $/bbl.