Nifty achieves record closing high yet again; Surpasses 8,750 mark

Prolonging its gaining streak for sixth day in a row, Nifty ended the Thursday’s trade with a gain of around half a percent on hopes of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank. On the domestic front, sentiment was buoyed on buying in blue-chips, tracking a firm trend across the region and on optimism that the government will continue with the reforms agenda. Some support also came in from report that foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities to the tune of Rs 2,065 crore on January 21, 2015, as per the provisional stock exchange data. Investors also got some boost from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India is back in the reckoning at the global centre-stage and the huge build-up in positive sentiments among investors should soon start converting into real investment flows on the ground.

After a gap up opening, nifty pared most of its early gains and entered into red terrain in noon deals for a brief period, but significant recovery in dying hours of trade helped nifty to end the session above its crucial 8,750 mark, first time in a history of NSE, with a gain of around half a percent. Most of the sectoral indices on the NSE settled in the positive territory with CNX Pharma gaining the most, ending with a gain of over one and a half percent followed by CNX Auto up by 0.71% and CNX Media up by 0.70% while, CNX Energy down 1.98%, CNX PSU Bank down 1.29% and CNX FMCG down by 0.66% remained the few losers on NSE sectoral space.

The top gainers from the F&O segment were India Cement, UBL and Indiabulls Real Estate. On the other hand, the top losers were Sun TV, Petronet LNG and Oriental Bank of Commerce. In the index options segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8900-9000 calls and 8500-8600 puts indicating the expected trading range. Some profit booking was seen in 8500, 8600 and 8700 calls, which contracted by 0.04, 4.42 and 7.60 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 8800, 8700 and 8600 Put strikes saw addition of 5.02, 11.46 and 1.66 lakh shares, respectively.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market's short term expectation of volatility increased by 0.85 or 4.81% and reached 18.56. The 50-share CNX Nifty was up by 31.90 points or 0.37% to settle at 8,761.40.

Nifty January 2015 futures closed at 8779.15 on Thursday at a premium of 17.75 points over spot closing of 8761.40, while Nifty February 2015 futures ended at 8833.15 at a premium of 71.75 points over spot closing. Nifty January futures saw an addition of 0.45 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 22.65 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 0.75 points at 325.95 compared with spot closing of 325.20. The number of contracts traded were 19,812.

IDFC January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 1.25 points at 175.55 compared with spot closing of 174.30. The number of contracts traded were 16,795.

ICICI Bank January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 0.75 points at 369.75 compared with spot closing of 369.00. The number of contracts traded were 22,557.

HDFC Bank January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 3.80 points at 1026.35 compared with spot closing of 1022.55. The number of contracts traded were 26,359.

Reliance Industries January 2015 futures traded at a premium of 3.50 points at 887.70 compared with spot closing of 884.20. The number of contracts traded were 31,582.

Among Nifty calls, 9,000 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 1.43 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8,600 SP from the January month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.0.06 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 9,000 SP (4.39 mn) and that for Puts was at 8,600 SP (5.25 mn).

The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8781.37--- Pivot Point 8754.18--- Support --- 8734.22.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.71 for January month contract.The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Infosys (1.40), Ultratech Cement (1.38), Grasim Industries (1.35), Axis Bank (1.32) and Cairn India (1.29).

Among most active underlying, HDFC Bank witnessed contraction of 2.38 million of Open Interest in the January month futures contract, followed by Reliance Industries witnessing a contraction of 1.23 million of Open Interest in the January month contract; State Bank of India witnessed contraction of 2.40 million of Open Interest in the January month contract; ONGC witnessed a contraction of 0.82 million of Open Interest in the January month's future contract and Tata Steel witnessed contraction of 0.36 million of Open Interest in the January month contract.