SOMBRE

Once again the markets opened with a gap down, tracking the weakness in the Asian markets and once again fell sharply even after a gap down opening and could not recover their losses for the entire session and closed very near to their lowest point of the day. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 61 and 214 points respectively. The market breadth was also extremely negative with 349 advances to 1010 declines. On the sectoral front, the FMCG sector was the biggest loser, followed by the Midcap, Banking, Pharma, Auto & IT sectors. On the individual stocks front, HIndalco, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India, Jindal Steel & Ambuja Cement were the top five Nifty gainers, while NMDC, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Tata Motors     & Sesa Goa were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, FIIs were net sellers to the tune of 558 crores while the DIIs were net buyers to the tune of 714 crores in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in Index futures to the tune of 484 crores and net buyers in index options to the tune of 82 crores, while they were net buyers in Stock options to the tune of mere 4 crores only and net sellers in Stock options to the tune of 29 crores. Nifty future settled at 5705, with just 6 points premium to the spot, along with a considerable increase in open interest. On the options side PCR fell to 0.83, along with an increase in the India VIX by 3.13%. On the Call options side, 5700 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 & 5600 calls. On the Put Options side, the 5400 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5600 & 5500 puts, while the 5800 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 & 6000 puts. The entire activity in the F&O space saw, shorting in Index futures and call writing along with long positions on the Put options, indicating further weakness in the markets.

On the technical side, Nifty breached yet another crucial, support of 5708, and from this point onwards, falling to the 5500 levels seems to be a real possibility and the technical indicators are also showing no signs of divergence. The levels to watch out for Nifty will be 5724, 5749 on the upside and 5678, 5657 & 5632 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee recovered a large part of its losses today, helped by dollar sales from a corporate and exporters. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 57.98, while the near month USD-INR future settled at 58.10 for the day.

On the international markets front, the Asian markets have closed deep in the red, while the European markets have closed on a mixed note and the U.S. markets have risen on the back of better than estimated jobs data and acquisitions in the media and grocery industries. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading up by 0.51 & 0.07% at 104.08 & 95.96 $/bbl respectively and the Natural gas future is trading up by 0.99% at 3.81 $/MMBtu.