Nifty closes at record high level

The fifty stock index -- Nifty -- continued its northward journey for fourth consecutive day on Tuesday and finished the excellent day of trade with a massive gain of 144 points or 1.69%, on the back of strong rally in index heavyweight stocks like HDFC, ITC, Reliance and ICICI Bank. Earlier, the benchmark made a gap up start tracking positive cues from global indices and sustained buying in almost all the key heavyweights along with broader indices to cross its crucial 8,600 mark in the early trade. Moreover, positive cues from other regional peers also set the positive mood for the bulls. The index carried on its strong run in afternoon trade as most of sectoral indices on the NSE were leading the markets higher where CNX Metal Index was on the front foot, with gaining more than three percent on hopes of revival in demand for metals after China reported better-than-expected fourth quarter GDP growth. Sentiments were upbeat after IMF in its report stated that India is expected to grow at 6.3% this year and 6.5% in 2016 by when it is likely to cross China’s projected growth rate, while terming the reforms of new government led by PM Narendra Modi as promising but insisted that their implementation is key. Traders also got support as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that the government would take special steps to boost public spending on infrastructure and initiate measures to rationalise subsidies. Besides, high FII inflows in domestic equities in the previous session and encouraging Q3 earnings by some blue-chip companies buoyed the trading sentiment. Although nifty failed to settled above its crucial 8,700 mark due to some profit booking, but ended the session at record closing highs with the gain of over one and half a percent point.

All the sectoral indices on the NSE settled in the positive territory with CNX Metal surging the most, ending with a gain of over three percent followed by CNX Finance up by 2.46% and Bank Nifty up by 1.86% on NSE sectoral space. Meanwhile, India VIX - the gauge of underlying volatility in the market has declined in today's session, which indicates that traders have slowdown buying options contracts.

The top gainers from the F&O segment were SSLT, HDFC and Tata Steel. On the other hand, the top losers were Mindtree, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services and Gail. In the index options segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8600-8700 calls and 8100-8200 puts indicating the expected trading range. Some profit booking was seen in 8300, 8400 and 8500 calls, which contracted by 5.29, 6.65 and 3.93 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 8400, 8500 and 8600 Put strikes saw addition of 1.16, 3.44 and 22.15 lakh shares, respectively.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market's short term expectation of volatility decreased by 2.14% and reached 17.27. The 50-share CNX Nifty was up by 144.90 points or 1.69% to settle at 8,695.60. Nifty January 2015 futures closed at 8717.15 on Tuesday at a premium of 21.55 points over spot closing of 8695.60, while Nifty February 2015 futures ended at 8765.35 at a premium of 69.75 points over spot closing. Nifty January futures saw an addition of 1.66 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 21.73 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on January 29, 2015.

From the most active contracts, State Bank of India January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 1.60 points at 319.60 compared with spot closing of 318.00. The number of contracts traded were 27,171.

ICICI Bank January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 0.35 points at 367.35 compared with spot closing of 367.00. The number of contracts traded were 23,550.

HDFC Bank January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 9.45 points at 1027.25 compared with spot closing of 1017.80. The number of contracts traded were 28,213.

Reliance Industries January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 1.00 points at 903.55 compared with spot closing of 902.55. The number of contracts traded were 35,258.

Axis Bank January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 1.50 points at 553.65 compared with spot closing of 552.15. The number of contracts traded were 39,772.Among Nifty calls, 8700 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with an addtion of 0.26 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8,500 SP from the January month expiry was the most active put with a contraction of 0.34 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 8700 SP (4.80 mn) and that for Puts was at 8,000 SP (6.52 mn).  The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8744.17--- Pivot Point 8659.33--- Support --- 8610.77.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.74 for January month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were YES Bank (1.46), Ultratech Cement (1.45), Maruti Suzuki (1.38), Century Textiles & Industries (1.29) and BHEL (1.29). 

Among most active underlying, Hindustan Unilever witnessed an addition of 0.04 million of Open Interest in the January month futures contract, followed by Reliance Industries witnessing a contraction of 1.39 million of Open Interest in the January month contract; Axis Bank witnessed an addition of 1.03 million of Open Interest in the January month contract, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 0.78 million of Open Interest in the January month contract and ICICI Bank witnessed a contraction of 0.95 million of Open Interest in the January month's future contract.