Nifty ends near intra-day low amid weak global cues

S&P CNX Nifty ended lower on Wednesday amid dampened global cues with profit booking in frontline stocks. On the global front, Asian shares erased modest gains to edge lower on Wednesday as cautious investors waited for more clues about the global growth outlook, while a pause in the yen's declines spurred profit taking in Japanese equities after their recent rally. Additionally, Europe's top shares were trading lower as investors continue to consolidate gains with indexes around multi-month highs and near technically 'overbought' territory, while sovereign risks remain a cloud on the horizon.

Back home, Indian equity benchmark, after touching their two years high in previous session, made a flat start with hovering near their pre-close mark as market participants’ traded cautiously ahead of key earnings announcement this week. In the first half, market extended its early losses and continued negative trade as concerns over global growth recovery after World Bank cut its global growth forecast for this year, as austerity measures, high unemployment and low business confidence were dampening economies in developed nations. Market continued its negative trade in the second half too as investors’ sentiments were weighed down after RBI Governor's hawkish statement that there was no room for fiscal and monetary stimulus, which reduced rate cut hopes and pushed up bond yields and led to the profit booking in rate sensitive stocks. Finally, Nifty ended the session near its intra-day low with a loss of massive 54 points.

Meanwhile, most of the sectoral indices on the NSE made a negative closing. CNX Auto down 2.43%, CNX Metal down 2.31%, CNX PSU Bank down 2.13%, CNX Media down 2.12% and CNX Realty down 1.59% remained the top losers in the trade. While CNX Energy up by 0.38% remained the only gainer. The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility, up by 3.02% and reached 13.99.

The India VIX witnessed an addition of 3.02% at 13.99 as compared to its previous close of at 13.58 on Tuesday.

The 50-share S&P CNX Nifty lost 54.75 points or 0.90% to settle at 6,001.85.

Nifty January 2013 futures closed at 6,019.25 on Wednesday at a premium of 17.40 points over spot closing of 6,001.85, while Nifty February 2013 futures ended at 6,060.45, at a premium of 58.60 points over spot closing. Nifty January futures saw contraction of 0.97 million (mn) taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 14.53 mn units. The near month January 2013 derivatives contract will expire on January 31, 2013.

From the most active contracts, Reliance Communications January 2013 futures were trading at a premium of 0.35 at 81.15 compared with spot closing of 80.80. The number of contracts traded was 18,242.

HDIL January 2013 futures were at a premium of 0.65 at 120.10 compared with spot closing of 119.45. The number of contracts traded was 20,875.

Tata Motors January 2013 futures were at a premium of 0.20 at 320.35 compared with spot closing of 320.15. The number of contracts traded was 16,916.

DLF January 2013 futures were at a premium of 0.65 point at 248.60 compared with spot closing of 247.95. The number of contracts traded was 21,243.

Reliance Industries January 2013 futures were at a premium of 2.40 point at 862.40 compared with spot closing of 860.00. The number of contracts traded was 33,541.

Among Nifty calls, 6,200 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.15 million open interest.

Among Nifty puts, 5,900 SP from the January month expiry was the most active put with contraction of 0.38 million open interest.

The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 6200 SP (8.61 mn) and that for Puts was at 5900 SP (7.80 mn).

The respective Support and Resistance levels are: Resistance 6041.18 -- Pivot Point 6016.62 -- Support 5977.28.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) OI wise stood at 1.29 for January -month contract.

The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were SRTransfin 2.75, Welcorp 2.50, GUJ Fluoro 2.38, Infosys 2.20, and HUL 1.38.

Among most active underlying, Unitech witnessed contraction of 7.75million of Open Interest in the January month futures contract followed by Jaiprakash Associates which witnessed contraction of 0.06 million of Open Interest in the near month contract. Meanwhile, IFCI witnessed of contraction of 0.48 million in the January month futures. Also, RCOM witnessed contraction of 4.95 million in Open Interest in the January month contract. Finally, R Power witnessed contraction of 0.60 million of Open Interest in the near month futures contract.