After receiving some drubbing in the previous two sessions, Nifty, the 50-share index, heaved a sigh of relief, settling with marginal gains amid lackadaisical trade on Wednesday. The index opened higher on the back of strong global cues, hitting intraday high levels in the early-morning session. Profit booking emerged at higher levels and the index started to drift lower in late morning session. Although, some buying emerged later in the session, however could not sustain as market participants booked profits. Market, for most part of the session, traded in a tight range as some investors remained on the sidelines in the absence of any significant trigger from the domestic front. However, some value buying in dying hours helped markets to end the session in the green. Finance Ministry emphasized that despite some improvement on macro-economic front, it will still remain watchful for CAD as well as the rupee because global markets are still volatile. While, factors like depreciation in rupee values against the dollar and FIIs outflow in the previous session weighed on sentiments. Traders were seen piling up positions in IT, TECK and Realty stocks, while selling was witnessed in Metal, PSU and Consumer Durables sector stocks.
Coming to F&O market internals, Nifty has seen a strong move of more than 7% in the May series but now finding hurdles and hovering around 7300 levels. Till the end of the May series, Nifty is likely to move in a broader range of 7150 on the lower side and 7450 on the higher side. Further, fresh put writing at 7300 strike indicates downside support while call writing at 7400 strike indicates a limited upside for next couple of days. In today's session, the highest Put base stands at 7000 strike with over 46 lakh shares. The highest Call base stands at 7400 strike with over 65 lakh shares. The 7350, 7400 and 7450 Call strikes saw an addition of 14.84, 9.40 and 5.35 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 7300, 7250 and 7200 Put strikes saw an addition of 8.87, 2.53 and 6.97 lakh shares, respectively.
The top gainers from the F&O Securities were Power Finance Corporation, Oriental Bank of Commerce and UltraTech Cement. The top losers were GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Steel Authority of India and Dish TV India. Meanwhile, India VIX - the gauge of underlying volatility in the market - has lost its positive movement and ended in red as traders turned cautious ahead of the F&O expiry this week.
Most of the sectoral indices on the NSE were settled in the red, CNX Metal down by 1.41%, CNX Auto down by 0.95%, CNX PSU Bank down by 0.90%, CNX Media down by 0.74%, CNX Energy down by 0.70% and CNX FMCG down by 0.09%, while CNX IT up by 1.49%, CNX Realty up by 1.30%, Bank Nifty up by 0.59%, CNX Finance up by 0.54% and CNX Pharma up by 0.17% were the gainers on the NSE sectoral indices.
The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market's short term expectation of volatility decreased by 8.08% and reached 17.56. The 50-share CNX Nifty increased by 11.65 points or 0.16% to settle at 7,329.65.
Nifty May 2014 futures closed at 7332.10 on Wednesday at a premium of 2.45 points over spot closing of 7,329.65, while Nifty June 2014 futures ended at 7353.55 at a premium of 23.90 points over spot closing. Nifty May futures saw contraction of 2.03 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 14.59 mn units. The near month May 2014 derivatives contract will expire on May 29, 2014.
From the most active contracts, HDFC Bank May 2014 futures were at a premium of 2.25 points at 823.60 compared with spot closing of 821.35. The number of contracts traded was 35,373.
Reliance Communications May 2014 futures traded at a discount of 0.45 points at 145.20 compared with spot closing of 145.65. The number of contracts traded was 21,886.
ICICI Bank May 2014 futures were at a discount of 4.90 points at 1457.80 compared with spot closing of 1462.70. The number of contracts traded was 31,457.
Reliance Industries May 2014 futures traded at a premium of 0.45 points at 1089.95 compared with spot closing of 1089.50. The number of contracts traded was 25,785.
Axis Bank May 2014 futures traded at a discount of 10.20 points at 1860.10 compared with spot closing of 1870.30. The number of contracts traded was 21,896.
Among Nifty calls, 7,500 SP from the May month expiry was the most active call with contraction of 0.66 million open interest. Among Nifty puts, 7,000 SP from the May month expiry was the most active put with contraction of 0.17 million open interest. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 7,500 SP (6.10 mn) and that for Puts was at 7,000 SP (4.57 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 7348.73 --- Pivot Point 7325.67--- Support --- 7306.58.
The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 0.91 for May month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were PNB 1.39, SSLT 1.37, UPL 1.36, Axis Bank 1.26 and Maruti 1.20. Among most active underlying, SBI witnessed contraction of 0.50 million of Open Interest in the May month futures contract, followed by HDFC Bank witnessing contraction of 6.80 million of Open Interest in the May month contract; while Reliance Industries witnessed contraction of 2.10 million of Open Interest in the May month futures contract, ICICI Bank of India witnessed contraction 1.57 million of Open Interest in the May month contract and United Spirits witnessed contraction of 0.87 million of Open Interest in the May month's future contract.
