Nifty ends below 9,800 mark on feeble global cues

Extending its previous session’s southward journey, Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- ended the disappointing session of trade with a loss of around a percent on Friday, on the back of weak global cues. Nifty opened in the green, but failed to hold its gains for too long and started moving southward and entered into red to end near intraday lows. Fall of over 5% in Infosys mainly dampened the sentiments. Infosys closed in red after multiple brokerages have downgraded the stock following Vishal Sikka’s resignation as the chief executive and managing director. Sentiments remained dampened after the private report highlighted that consumer confidence in India declined in the second quarter of this year amid concerns regarding job security and lower optimism on employment prospects. Adding to the pessimism, the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) weekly press release highlighted that about a quarter of the country has received deficient rainfall in the first half of the monsoon, but hopes the situation will improve in the second half. The Met department states that there is a 4% deficit rain across the country, but 26% part of the country has received deficient rain.

Traders were seen selling positions in PSU Bank, Pharma and Metal stocks, while none of the sectoral index ended in green. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Manappuram, PC Jeweller and Century Textiles. On the other hand, the top losers were Infosys, Sintex and Ajanta Pharma.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 1.68% and reached 14.81. The 50-share Nifty was down by 83.05 points or 0.84% to settle at 9,754.35.

Nifty August 2017 futures closed at 9768.60 on Monday at a premium of 14.25 points over spot closing of 9754.35, while Nifty September 2017 futures ended at 9801.75 at a premium of 47.40 points over spot closing. Nifty August futures saw an addition of 0.53 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 25.57 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on August 31, 2017.

From the most active contracts, Infosys August 2017 futures traded at a premium of 6.55 points at 876.70 compared with spot closing of 870.15. The numbers of contracts traded were 89,378.

Axis Bank August 2017 futures traded at a premium of 0.10 points at 494.80 compared with spot closing of 494.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 15,309.

Yes Bank August 2017 futures traded at a premium of 7.25 points at 1721.25 compared with spot closing of 1714.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 12,091.

ICICI Bank August 2017 futures traded at a premium of 0.25 points at 293.60 compared with spot closing of 293.35. The numbers of contracts traded were 12,067.

Vedanta August 2017 futures traded at a premium of 1.15 points at 294.65 compared with spot closing of 293.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 11,944.

The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 9845.77 -- Pivot Point 9792.93 -- Support -- 9701.52.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 0.85 for August month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Infibeam Incorporation (1.49), Nestle India (1.33), Indiabulls Real Estate (1.23), Bharti Airtel (1.07) and Tata Steel (1.06).

Among most active underlying, Infosys witnessed an addition of 1.28 million units of Open Interest in the August month futures contract, followed by Tata Steel witnessing an addition of 22.50 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract, State Bank of India witnessed a contraction of 0.61 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract, Vedanta witnessed an addition of 41.64 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract and Reliance Industries witnessed a contractionof 0.03 million units of Open Interest in the August month future contract.