Profit booking drags Nifty below 8,200 mark

Snapping its four days winning streak, Indian benchmark index --Nifty-- finished the session in negative territory on Thursday, as investors booked profits after the country’s GDP grew lower than expected in the September quarter at 7.3%, as compared to 7.6% in the same quarter last year. Sentiments remained dismal with report indicating that Indian factory activity decelerated sharply last month after PM Modi's currency crackdown that led to a rationing of cash and cooled domestic consumption, new orders and production. The Nikkei/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 52.3 in November from October's 54.4, its biggest month-on-month decline since March 2013.

Investors were seen piling up positions in FMCG and Consumer Durables stocks, while sharp selling was witnessed in Metal, Power and Banking sector stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Eicher Motors, GAIL (India) and Siemens. On the other hand, the top losers were Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Idea Cellular and Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8000-8600 calls and 7500-8000 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation. In today's session, the 8300, 8500 and 8600 Call strikes saw addition of 8.19, 2.17 and 1.82 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 8200, 8100 and 8000 Put strikes saw addition of 5.26, 5.30 and 3.99 lakh shares, respectively.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 0.96% and reached 16.68. The 50-share Nifty was down by 31.60 points or 0.38% to settle at 8,192.90.

Nifty December 2016 futures closed at 8212.00 on Thursday at a premium of 19.10 points over spot closing of 8192.90, while Nifty January 2017 futures ended at 8247.30 at a premium of 54.40 points over spot closing. Nifty December futures saw an addition of 0.50 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 16.10 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on December 29, 2016.

From the most active contracts, Maruti December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 3.75 points at 5255.85 compared with spot closing of 5252.10. The numbers of contracts traded were 20,925.

RIL December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 1.75 points at 999.50 compared with spot closing of 997.75. The numbers of contracts traded were 18,685.

ICICI Bank December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 1.40 points at 260.55 compared with spot closing of 259.15. The numbers of contracts traded were 13,511.

SBIN Cement December 2016 futures traded at a discount of 0.70 points at 256.35 compared with spot closing of 255.65. The numbers of contracts traded were 11,670.

Bharti Airtel December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 0.35 points at 318.55 compared with spot closing of 318.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 10,285.  

Among Nifty calls, 8300 SP from the December month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.81 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8000 SP from the December month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.39 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 8300 SP (5.06 mn) and that for Puts was at 8000 SP (7.79 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8234.12--- Pivot Point 8209.58--- Support --- 8168.37.             

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.18 for December month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were NIIT Tech (1.88), Godrej Consumer Products (1.50), Hero MotoCorp (1.48), Ajanta Pharma (1.39) and Marico (1.36).   

Among most active underlying, Maruti Suzuki India witnessed a contraction of 0.11 million of Open Interest in the December month futures contract, followed by Reliance Industries witnessing an addition of 0.32 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, Vedanta witnessed an addition of 0.11 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, State Bank of India witnessed a contraction of 0.26 million of Open Interest in the December month contract and ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 2.35 million units of Open Interest in the November month's future contract.