Nifty ekes out slender gains; reclaims 8,250 mark

Friday’s trading session was clearly of consolidation as the Indian benchmark -- Nifty -- appeared a bit fatigued and remained in directionless trajectory throughout the day. However, the frontline index managed to extend the winning momentum for the second straight day, as local sentiments remained optimistic with CBEC Chairman Najib Shah’s statement that the GST Council may in future decide to reduce the tax slabs under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime after analyzing the revenue garnered and the compensation payouts to states. He said that any change in tax slab is possible after assessing the revenues and the effect of exemptions and deductions given in the new tax regime and analyzing it with the expenditure. Some support also came with the reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 698.86 crore on December 08, 2016.

Traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, Banking and FMCG stocks, while selling was witnessed in Auto, Metal and Capital Goods sector stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were IFCI, Sun TV Network and IDBI Bank. On the other hand, the top losers were Bharti Infratel, Indiabulls Housing Finance and Motherson Sumi Systems. 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 8300 and 8600 Call strikes saw addition of 1.86 and 0.94 lakh shares, respectively. On the other hand, 8300, 8200 and 8100 Put strikes saw addition of 6.77, 3.64 and 1.26 lakh shares, respectively.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 2.94% and reached 15.06. The 50-share Nifty was up by 14.90 points or 0.18% to settle at 8,261.75.

Nifty December 2016 futures closed at 8277.00 on Friday at a premium of 15.25 points over spot closing of 8261.75, while Nifty January 2017 futures ended at 8311.15 at a premium of 49.40 points over spot closing. Nifty December futures saw an addition of 0.29 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 17.15 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on December 29, 2016.

From the most active contracts, SBI December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 0.30 points at 266.95 compared with spot closing of 266.65. The numbers of contracts traded were 15,701.

Axis Bank December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 1.95 points at 458.35 compared with spot closing of 456.40. The numbers of contracts traded were 14,468.

Sun TV December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 0.15 points at 517.55 compared with spot closing of 517.40. The numbers of contracts traded were 14,229.

ICICI Bank December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 0.35 points at 268.80 compared with spot closing of 268.45. The numbers of contracts traded were 14,121.

Sun Pharma December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 2.75 points at 675.75 compared with spot closing of 673.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 11,045.

Among Nifty calls, 8300 SP from the December month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.18 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8200 SP from the December month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 4.22 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 8300 SP (4.66 mn) and that for Puts was at 8000 SP (7.83 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8277.15 --- Pivot Point 8259.55 --- Support --- 8244.15.             

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.25 for December month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Colgate-Palmolive (India) (3.36), Hero MotoCorp (1.74), Eicher Motors (1.67), Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (1.41) and Vedanta (1.27).   

Among most active underlying, Sun TV Network witnessed a contraction of 0.45 million of Open Interest in the December month futures contract, followed by State Bank of India witnessing an addition of 0.29 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, Vedanta witnessed a contraction of 0.08 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 0.74 million of Open Interest in the December month contract and Yes Bank witnessed an addition of 0.16 million units of Open Interest in the November month's future contract.