Nifty declines for fourth consecutive session; closes above 8100 mark

The local benchmark, Nifty fell for the fourth consecutive session on Monday, as investors remained on sidelines due to lack of any major positive domestic as well as global cues. Sentiments got dampened with the industry body ASSOCHAM’s report that prospects of interest rate cut in near future may be bleak due to factors like continuous pressure on rupee against dollar, firming of the US interest rates and hardening of crude oil prices. However, losses remained capped with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that infrastructure investment needs a booster and his next Budget in February will focus on encouraging more public as well as private spending to boost economic growth.

Traders were seen offloading their positions in PSU Bank, Realty and Pharma sector stocks, while IT remained the lone gainer on NSE sectoral front. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Petronet LNG, Engineers India and Reliance Infrastructure. On the other hand, the top losers were Bharat Financial Inclusion, Hindustan Zinc and UPL. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8200-8500 calls and 7900-8200 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 2.72% and reached 14.83. The 50-share Nifty was down by 35.10 points or 0.43% to settle at 8,104.35.

Nifty December 2016 futures closed at 8124.15 on Monday at a premium of 19.80 points over spot closing of 8,104.35, while Nifty January 2017 futures ended at 8159.55 at a premium of 55.2 points over spot closing. Nifty December futures saw a contraction of 0.30 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 14.57 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on December 29, 2016.

From the most active contracts, Tata Motors December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 2 points at 473.05 compared with spot closing of 471.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 10,014.

Reliance Infrastructure December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 1.55 points at 504.55 compared with spot closing of 503.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 9,211.

Bharat Financial Inclusion 2016 futures traded at a premium of 2.40 points at 604.40 compared with spot closing of 602.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 8,851.

Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries December 2016 futures traded at a discount of 1.35 points at 634.55 compared with spot closing of 633.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 8,268.

Aurobindo Pharma December 2016 futures traded at a premium of 2.1 points at 700.00 compared with spot closing of 697.90. The numbers of contracts traded were 7,942.

Among Nifty calls, 8200 SP from the December month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.15 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8100 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 (6.12 mn) and that for Puts was at 8000 SP (7.39 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8126.28 --- Pivot Point 8110.57 --- Support --- 8088.63.             

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.07 for December month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Godrej Consumer Products (17.50), DCB Bank (2.89), Colgate-Palmolive (2.22), Marico (2.15) and UBL (1.30).    

Among most active underlying, Vedanta witnessed a contraction of 0.10 million of Open Interest in the December month futures contract, followed by Tata Motors witnessing an addition of 0.14 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 0.21 million of Open Interest in the December month contract, Yes Bank witnessed a contraction of 0.02 million of Open Interest in the December month contract and Bharat Financial Inclusion witnessed an addition of 0.76 million units of Open Interest in the November month's future contract.