Nifty surges to intraday record high

Wednesday marked a historical day for the Nifty, when the index touched its all time record high intraday, led by gains in blue-chip stocks which have been moving higher for last some time on back of continued foreign-investor buying. Though, the trade turned choppy afterwards and the index pared gains and even entered the red for a brief period during the latter half of the trade, however recovery followed and the market regained the momentum to post decent gains of about half a percent and ending at a fresh record closing highs.

Sectorally, the day was marked by huge gains in IT and banking sector, with CNX IT gaining 2.18%, while the CNX PSU Banks was up by 0.68% and the Bank Nifty gained 0.23%. CNX Services too gained 0.67%. On the other hand, CNX Metal was down by 0.32%, while CNX Infra lost 0.09%. The CNX Midcap and Small cap indices too ended lower by 0.42% and 0.65% respectively.

Although the markets are trading at their record highs, the traders are worried about NSE equity futures trading at discounts to cash market. Nifty futures for near month July expiry ended at 7,791.55 compared to Nifty closing of 7795.75, indicating that markets could see some decline in the coming days. Nifty is already up by over 20% this year.

Meanwhile, India VIX - the gauge of underlying volatility in the market inched slightly higher in today's session. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Infosys, Hindalco Industries and TCS, on the other hand the top losers were Yes Bank, Tata Steel and Axis Bank.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market's short term expectation of volatility moved higher by 0.34% and reached 14.69. The 50-share CNX Nifty increased by 27.90 points or 0.36% to settle at 7,795.75.

Nifty July 2014 futures closed at 7791.55 on Wednesday at a discount of 4.20 points over spot closing of 7,795.75, while Nifty August 2014 futures ended at 7826.05 at a premium of 30.30 points over spot closing. Nifty July futures saw an addition of 0.42 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 16.82 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on July 31, 2014.

From the most active contracts, HDFC Bank July 2014 futures traded at a premium of 2.70 points at 838.70 compared with spot closing of 836.00. The number of contracts traded were 12,875.

Hindalco Industries July 2014 futures traded at a premium of 0.25 points at 193.50 compared with spot closing of 193.25. The number of contracts traded were 16,206.

Reliance Industries July 2014 futures traded at a premium of 1.95 points at 1032.95 compared with spot closing of 1031.00. The number of contracts traded were 29,478.

Tata Steel July 2014 futures traded at a premium of 1.35 points at 556.50 compared with spot closing of 555.15. The number of contracts traded were 13,341.

ICICI Bank July 2014 futures traded at a premium of 1.55 points at 1507.45 compared with spot closing of 1505.90. The number of contracts traded were 30,646.

Among Nifty calls, 7900 SP from the July month expiry was the most active call with a addition of 0.64 million open interests. Among Nifty puts 7,800 SP from the July month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 1.30 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 8000 SP (8.40 mn) and that for Puts was at 7,700 SP (7.14 mn).  The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 7819.00 --- Pivot Point 7785.95 --- Support --- 7762.70.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.11 for July month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were ITC (1.51), Just Dial (1.42), Sun TV (1.25), Hindalco (1.08) and Axis Bank (0.97).

Among most active underlying, Axis Bank witnessed an addition of 0.01 million of Open Interest in the July month futures contract, followed by SBI witnessing an addition of 0.06 million of Open Interest in the July  month contract; Infosys witnessed an addition of 0.11 million of Open Interest in the July month futures contract, ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 0.69 million of Open Interest in the July month contract and Yes Bank witnessed an addition of 0.93 million of Open Interest in the July month's future contract.