Sensex southbound; ONGC, Infy, NTPC, SBI, TCS drag

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Sensex choppy with negative bias; banks, realty decline

The Sensex opened the session with a negative bias and was volatile in trade. The markets were consolidating for the third day in a row. Private banking, realty, select infrastructure, oil & gas and auto stocks were under pressure. However, select pharma, power and cement stocks were seeing buying interest.

At 9:56 am, the Sensex was down 40 points at 16,957 and the Nifty declined 9.5 points at 5,045. However, the CNX Midcap rose 14 points at 7,203. About 537 shares advanced while 318 shares declined on the NSE. 

Among the frontliners, Infosys, DLF, Jaiprakash Associates, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Reliance Capital, GAIL, BPCL, ONGC, ABB, M&M, Unitech and BHEL were the losers.

However, Hero Honda, Reliance Power, Suzlon Energy, Ranbaxy Labs, Cipla, Sterlite Industries, Grasim, Tata Motors, Maruti and Jindal Steel & Power were seeing buying interest.

Midcap space:

BPL rose 7% and Samtel gained 4%.

Bharati Shipyard and ABG Shipyard get SEBI nod for open offer for Great Offshore. All three stocks shot up 4-5%.

Varun Shipping and Essar Shipping rose 1-2.5%.

However, Hindustan Motors fell 1%

Global Cues:

Asian markets were trading mixed. Kospi rose 1.1% and Straits Times was up 0.9%. Taiwan Weighted and Jakarta were marginally in the green. However, Nikkei slipped 1.4% and Hang Seng declined 0.4%. Shanghai was flat.

The US markets end flat amid narrow range of trade; the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 11 points at 10,426. The S&P 500 Index ended flat at 1,110 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 10.6 points at 2,193.

US housing starts fell 10.6% in October, at lowest level in six months.

Commodities:

Reuters CRB Index was up 0.1%.

Crude gained 0.5% at $79.58, after hitting high at $80.3/bbl on Wednesday.

Gold made record high at $ 1153. It settled at $1142/ounce.

Copper was up 0.8% at $6880/tonne, at 14-month highs.

Baltic Dry Index was up 6% to 4643.

Silver, Platinum and Palladium were at 14-month highs.

Market cues:

-FIIs net buy USD 128.4 million on November 17
-MFs net sell Rs 308 crore on November 17
-Total F&O Open Int up by Rs 2,485 crore at Rs 1,11,291 crore
-Banking, insurance bills not part of items listed
-FIIs net buy Rs 412 crore in cash on November 18 (prov)
-DIIs net sell Rs 257 crore in cash on November 18 ( prov)
-FIIs net buy Rs 1,372 crore in F&O on November 18

F&O cues:

-Total Futures Open Int up by Rs 1091 crore, Total Options Open Int up by Rs 1394 crore
-Nifty down 0.1%, Futures Open Int up by 3%
-Nifty Nov futures trading at 1 pt premium
-Nifty IVs at 21-24%
-Nifty Open Int PCR at 1.54 versus 1.53
-Nifty Calls adds 7.6 lakh shares in Open Int , Nifty Puts add 14.3 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty Nov 4800 Put adds 13.1 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty Nov 5000 Put adds 6.2 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty 4900 Put adds 3 lakh shares in Open Int
-Nifty Nov 5100 Call adds 3.7 lakh shares in Open Int
-Stock Futures add 2.95 crore shares in Open Int