Market wrap

The Sensex and the Nifty closed today's session at 40345.08 and 11912.95 levels, closing flat or adding 0.05% each, over their previous closing.

Moody's cutting India's outlook to negative from stable weighed on market sentiments and following a weak start, the bellwether indices further extended their losses over the course of the session. However, the market managed to stage a recovery in the post lunch session and recouped the earlier losses to close flat for the day, led primarily by index heavy banking stocks. The sector representative Nifty Bank added 1.27% over its previous close.

Among the top Nifty gainers were Zee (+6.16%), Yes Bank (5.73%), BPCL (2.81%), GAIL (2.48%)and Tata Motors (1.72%) while among the top losers were Nestle India (-2.37%), Hero MotoCorp (-2.12%), Hindalco (-2.11%), VEDL (-19.3%) and Cipla (-1.75%). 

Among sectoral indices, the Nifty Media index rose 2.82% in an otherwise net sideways market, buoyed mainly by gains in Zee while most other stocks in the sector also traded firm in today's session including Eros International Media, Dish TV India and Sun TV Network among others. As mentioned earlier in this report, banks and other stocks in the financial services space too were among the significant gainers. IT (Nifty IT: -0.52%) and auto (Nifty Auto: -22%) stocks were among the noteworthy losers in today's trade.     

In terms of derivatives data, the maximum open interest on the Nifty monthly expiry  (November series) stands at 11800 strike (~14,92,000 shares) on the call side and 11600 strike (~20,86,000 shares) on the put side; open interest put call ratio (PCR) stands at 1.18x, which hints at the potential for the index to surge higher in the near term.

The India Vix stood at 16.1100, as of end of today's trade.