Nifty ends marginally in green ahead of poll results

Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- failed to hold initial gains and closed the trading session flat with positive bias as investors stayed cautious ahead of assembly election results. Exit polls declared yesterday showed BJP ahead of other rival parties in all the five states. Besides, caution prevailed with CRISIL’s report that a revival in private sector investment cycle is likely to be deferred to fiscal 2019 as there is ample headroom in capacity utilization, stretched balance sheets and just a moderate pick-up in demand. In the next fiscal year ending March 2018, CRISIL predicts only a mild recovery due to an absence of fiscal and monetary stimuli and unsupportive global environment.  However, sentiments got some support with the report that the government's revenue collection from indirect tax during April-February grew by an impressive 22.2 percent, while that of direct tax rose by 10.7 percent. Total direct and indirect tax collections at February end stood at Rs 13.89 lakh crore, 81.5 percent of the target of Rs 16.99 lakh crore, as per the revised estimate for 2016-17. The total direct tax read Rs 6.17 lakh crore and indirect tax mop-up was Rs 7.72 lakh crore, led by robust collections in personal income tax and excise duty, respectively.

Traders were seen piling up positions in Auto, IT and Media stocks, while selling was witnessed in Metal, Pharma and PSU stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Jindal Steel & Power, Godrej Industries and Bosch.  On the other hand, the top losers were Petronet LNG, Hindustan Zinc and Tata Global Beverages. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 8900-9500 calls and 8400-9000 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 3.00% and reached 13.95. The 50-share Nifty was up by 7.55 points or 0.08% to settle at 8934.55.

Nifty March 2017 futures closed at 8958.70 on Friday at a premium of 24.15 points over spot closing of 8934.55, while Nifty April 2017 futures ended at 8985.40, at a premium of 50.85 points over spot closing. Nifty March futures saw an addition of 0.59 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 23.34 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on March 30, 2017.

From the most active contracts, Reliance Industries March 2017 futures traded at a premium of 7.90 points at 1287.00 compared with spot closing of 1279.10. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,703.

Bharat Financial Inclusion March 2017 futures traded at a premium of 8.15 points at 832.90 compared with spot closing of 824.75. The numbers of contracts traded were 15,951.

State Bank of India March 2017 futures traded at a premium of 1.00 points at 272.90 compared with spot closing of 271.90. The numbers of contracts traded were 11,208.

Vedanta March 2017 futures traded at a premium of 2.00 points at 249.75 compared with spot closing of 247.75. The numbers of contracts traded were 10,827.

Tata Steel March 2017 futures traded at a premium of 3.10 points at 470.15 compared with spot closing of 467.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 10,591.

Among Nifty calls, 9000 SP from the March month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.08 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 8900 SP from the March  month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.30 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 9000 SP (6.56 mn) and that for Puts was at 8900 SP (4.58 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 8972.18--- Pivot Point 8938.07--- Support --- 8900.43.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 0.81 for March month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Tata Consultancy Services (1.41), NIIT Technologies (1.16), Jindal Steel & Power (1.08), YES Bank (1.01) and Indraprastha Gas (0.89).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 0.10 million units of Open Interest in the March month futures contract, followed by Bharat Financial Inclusion witnessing an addition of 1.03 million units  of Open Interest in the March  month contract, Tata Steel witnessed an addition of 0.12 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract, Jindal Steel & Power witnessed an addition of 5.82 million units of Open Interest in the March  month future contract and State Bank of India witnessed a contraction of 0.02 million units of Open Interest in the March  month future contract.