Firm global cues take Nifty near 8,250 mark

Buoyed by firm global cues, Indian benchmark -- Nifty -- traded jubilantly throughout the day and ended the session with a gain of around two percent on Thursday. Sentiments remained up-beat, as investors expected the European Central Bank to extend its asset buying campaign at a policy meeting later in the day. Some support also came with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that demonetisation will boost growth in long run. The Finance Minister said the country will now have a cleaner economy, cleaner ethics and better GDP, he added that the economy, in the long term, is looking for a major change and policy makers now have a vision. Withdrawal of incremental CRR hike by the central bank, bargain hunting, appreciation in rupee value against the dollar and renewed FIIs buying interest also boosted the market sentiments.

The top gainers from the F&O segment were Havells India, Page Industries and BEML. On the other hand, the top losers were Crompton Greaves, Bharti Infratel and Karnataka Bank. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8200-8500 calls and 7800-8200 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation. In today's session, the 8400 and 8500 Call strikes saw addition of 2.93 and 1.54 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 8200, 8100 and 8000 Put strikes saw addition of 7.36, 6.15 and 4.14 lakh shares, respectively.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 7.84% and reached 15.52. The 50-share Nifty was up by 144.80 points or 1.79% to settle at 8,246.85.

Nifty December 2016 futures closed at 8255.65 on Thursday at a premium of 8.80 points over spot closing of 8246.85, while Nifty January 2017 futures ended at 8287.50 at a premium of 40.65 points over spot closing. Nifty December futures saw an addition of 1.03 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 16.86 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on December 29, 2016.

From the most active contracts, Sun Pharma December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 3.20 points at 678.90 compared with spot closing of 675.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 19,731.

Tata Steel December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 1.50 points at 432.80 compared with spot closing of 431.30. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,563.

Vedanta December 2016 futures traded at a discount of 1.90 points at 241.05 compared with spot closing of 242.95. The numbers of contracts traded were 13,484.

Maruti December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 24.00 points at 5258.60 compared with spot closing of 5234.60. The numbers of contracts traded were 11,333.

SBI December 2016 futures traded at a discount of 1.00 points at 260.90 compared with spot closing of 259.90. The numbers of contracts traded were 10,883.

Among Nifty calls, 8300 SP from the December month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.29 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8100 SP from the December month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.61 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 8300 SP (4.77 mn) and that for Puts was at 8000 SP (7.65 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8284.82--- Pivot Point 8218.28--- Support --- 8180.32.             

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.22 for December month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Colgate-Palmolive (India) (3.36), Hero MotoCorp (1.80), Eicher Motors (1.72), Ajanta Pharma (1.33) and Vedanta (1.27).   

Among most active underlying, Vedanta witnessed an addition of 4.25 million of Open Interest in the December month futures contract, followed by Tata Steel witnessing an addition of 3.96 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, Maruti Suzuki India witnessed an addition of 0.14 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 0.48 million of Open Interest in the December month contract and Tata Motors witnessed a contraction of 0.73 million units of Open Interest in the November month's future contract.