Nifty ends lower amid volatility; heavyweights drag

Indian equity benchmarks closed the session lower for the third consecutive day amid an extremely choppy trade on Thursday, led by a fall in heavyweights like SBI, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, BHEL, HDFC, Wipro, TCS and HUL.

Bears have consistently been tightening their grip on Indian markets as it has been breaking important levels on the downside everyday. The Nifty touched the 5200-mark during the day for the first time since June 14, 2010. It fell 27.75 points or 0.53%, to end at 5,225.80 after trading in a tight range of 5210-5250.

In the F&O space, Nifty 5300 and 5200 calls saw addition of close to 1.7 million shares each in open interest. The Nifty 5000 and 4900 Puts saw addition of 22% and 18% in open interest, respectively. The most active contracts in the F&O space were SBI, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, RIL, Reliance Infra and ICICI Bank.

Experts see more downside to the markets but also said there would be a good buying opportunity for good portfolios. Investors were buying good stocks at every major dip.

Ambareesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking fears the Nifty may plummet to the 4,800-4,600 levels backed by the panic in the market. "This is not a time for traders because if you buy from a trading point of view, you could possibly see the markets at possibly 5,000-5,100 levels and you would lose out," he added.

Vibhav Kapoor of IL&FS too feels that the Indian equities currently are in an ongoing bear market. "The overall environment, the way stocks have behaved, the way midcaps and smallcaps have come off 20-30-40-50% in a matter of few days and the speed at which the index has fallen I think these are all reflective of an ongoing bear market, no doubt about that."