How do you see the stock markets on the last day of 2021 and what does the last 2 days of flat trading indicate?

Let us first talk about the trade on Thursday, which was also the F&O expiry day. The F&O expiry was largely uneventful with the rollovers smooth. Nifty closed just around 10 points lower with the F&O expiry being through smoothly. For the second day in succession, the market closed flat as investors have been wary of spoiling yearly returns.

In terms of the market structure, the advance decline ratio was slightly negative on Thursday at 23:27 for the Nifty. However, the India VIX continued to be very subdued at 16.57 levels on Thursday indicating that we were still in a buy-on-dips market. The big gainers on Thursday were defensive stocks like NTPC, Titan, HCL Tech and Cipla.

Foreign investors net sold equities worth Rs.986 crore while domestic funds and LIC bought stocks worth Rs.578 crore on 30th December. Dow was 90 points higher and the NASDAQ was down 25 points on Thursday. European markets were flat to positive on Thursday. SGX Nifty is almost directionless as it trades at an early day discount of 6 basis points.

The last trading day of the year is likely to be uneventful as most investors will not be keen to make any big changes to their returns locked in. you will get to see some fresh action on the stock only in the new year, although Fed hawkishness and the progress of Omicron will be the big risk factors for the coming year.