MISERABLE

The markets opened with a gap down, tracking their Asian peers and to add to the misery, the Rupee touched its lifetime low, creating a sense of extreme panic which ultimately led to distress selling. The markets continued to trade with extreme negative bias and ultimately ended on an extremely negative note. The Nifty and the Sensex closed down by 56 and 171 points respectively. The market breadth was also negative with 515 advances to 781 declines. On the sectoral front, the Banking sector was the biggest loser, followed by the auto sector, while the FMCG sector was the biggest gainer of the day. On the individual stocks front, IndusInd Bank, HCL Tech, Reliance Infra, BHEL & Ambuja Cement were the top five Nifty gainers, while BPCL, JP Associate, ONGC, HDFC & Tata Motors were the top five Nifty losers for the day. On the institutional side, both FIIs and DIIs were net sellers to the tune of 204 & 59 crores respectively in the cash market.

On the derivatives side, FIIs were net sellers in both Index futures and Options to the tune of 446 and 865 crores respectively, while they were net buyers in Stock futures to the tune of 299 crores and net sellers in Stock options to the tune of 122 crores. Nifty future settled at 5829, with 18 points premium to the spot along with a considerable loss of open interest. On the Options side PCR stood at 1.0, along with a marginal fall in India VIX by 0.94%. On the Call options side, the 5800 call added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 call, while the 6100 call lost the maximum open interest followed by the 6000 & 5600 calls. On the Put options side, the 5400 put added the maximum open interest, followed by the 5600 & 5700 puts, while the 5800 put lost the maximum open interest, followed by the 5900 & 6000 puts. The entire activity in the F&O space indicates liquidation of some long positions in the Index futures along with some with some option writing happening on the Call options side and long positions being added on the Put options side.

On the technical side, all is not lost as Nifty has closed above most of its critical support levels and the weekly charts, are still showing signs of support. The levels to watch out for Nifty, will be 5848, 5864 on the upside and 5779, 5748 & 5716 on the downside. On the currency front, the Rupee fell to a record low, while bond yields surged today exacerbating fears about the funding of current account deficit. The partially convertible Rupee finally closed at 60.61, while the near month USD-INR future settled at  60.67 for the day.

On the International markets front, the Asian markets have closed on a extremely negative note, while on the other hand the European markets have closed on an extremely positive note and the U.S. markets are also trading in the green, giving the S&P 500 index its third straight day of gains as investors wait for the earnings season to kick off. On the energy futures front, both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures are trading marginally down at 107.44 & 103.09 $/bbl respectively, while the Natural gas future is trading up by 3.41% at 3.74 $/MMBtu.