Hi Diksha, can you give me your trading view for 16 August? Should I trade being a bank holiday?

It looked like Friday the 13th did not hold any fear for the Nifty and Sensex. On Friday, the indices went across all kinds of sceptics to close at all-time highs. Nifty scaled above the 16,500 mark and the Sensex closed above 55,000. What is more important is that the rally in the last couple of weeks has been predominantly led by the large caps.

The big news for the week is the four IPOs listing on Monday and two more listings on Friday. Exxaro Tiles, Windlas Biotech, Devyani International and Krsnaa Diagnostics will be listed on the bourses on 16th August while Nuvoco Vistas and CarTrade Tech will list on 20th August. The last 2 IPOs saw more sceptical subscriptions so could be interesting.

Foreign investors were net buyers to the tune of Rs.820 crore on 13 Aug, while domestic financial institutions, including mutual funds, bought Rs.150 crore of equities on Friday. For August, the FPI flows have been extremely robust, which is encouraging after the heavy selling in July. Hopefully, IPOs should hold the fort in August too.

Global markets were tepid on Friday and SGX Nifty is about 20 bps in the negative in early trades on Monday. I agree that 2 banking holidays including one trading holiday could dampen the flow in the week. Banking holidays put restrictions on BTST trades and hence the intraday and other trading volumes could be more subdued this week.