NIFTY ENDS AUGUST SERIES DOWN, EXTENDS OVERALL CONSOLIDATION; YELLEN SPEECH IN FOCUS

NIFTY ENDS AUGUST SERIES DOWN, EXTENDS OVERALL CONSOLIDATION; YELLEN SPEECH IN FOCUS

WORLD MARKETS                             

US indices fell 0.1%-0.2% yesterday a day ahead of a key speech from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at the annual Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers.

Healthcare stocks extended Wednesday's fall caused by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweet about Mylan's price increases of the allergy drug EpiPen.

Initial jobless claims fell for a third straight week to 261,000. Durable goods orders for July rose 4.4%, above expectations.

US oil rose 1.2% to $47.33 a barrel.

European markets, weighed down by a fall in miners, autos and health care stocks, tumbled 0.3%-1.1%.

AT HOME

After gaining about four tenth of a percent in the initial trade, benchmark indices plunged nearly a percent from the top of the day to end lower by about two third of a percent on the expiry day of the August derivative series. Sensex settled at 27836, down 224 points while Nifty lost 58 points to finish at 8592. BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices fell 0.4% and 0.1% respectively. Except a 0.3% each rise in FMCG and Oil & Gas indices, all the BSE sectoral indices ended in red with Telecom index leading the losses, down 1.8%, followed by 1.4% each cut in Metal and Teck indices.

FIIs net sold stocks and stock futures worth Rs 372 cr and 1564 cr respectively

Rupee appreciated 6 paise to end at 67.05/$.

For the August derivative series, Nifty was down 0.8%.

OUTLOOK

Today morning Hang Seng and Shanghai are up 0.1% and 0.5% respectively but other Asian markets are down with Nikkei leading the losses with 0.8% cut. SGX Nifty is suggesting about 15 points higher start for our market.

Nifty, after touching a high of 8683 in the initial trade, fell sharply to close at 8592, extending the volatile consolidation within the 8730-8580 range we have been talking about.

8580 to 8540 continues to be important support area, where 8580 is the bottom made earlier during the week, which also coincided with 34-DMA on that day, and 8540 is where the lower band of bollinger on the daily chart is placed. A breach of this support area would open up the possibility of the larger retracement of the 7927-8728 upmove and first major support to eye in that case would be 8420, the 38.2% retracement level fo this upmove.

8700-8730 continues to be the important hurdle area, a decisive crossover of which is required for the fresh upmove.

Tata Motors will report its quarterly earnings today.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to speak at an economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming today. Markets will be looking for clues from her speech on when the Fed might raise rates further, with many expecting Yellen's tone to be hawkish.