Nifty closes session at record high

Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- extended gains for third-straight session on Thursday and closed at an all-time high. Sentiments remained upbeat as the Modi government moved a step closer to implementing the GST regime from July 1. The Lok Sabha cleared four key GST Bills on Wednesday which was tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday. Traders took some encouragement with Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal’s statement that the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is a key economic reform that will facilitate the ease of doing business. The code provides for a market determined, time-bound mechanism for orderly resolution of insolvency, wherever possible, and ease of exit, wherever required. Some support also came with Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa stating that using Aadhaar as a platform, the government initiatives like direct benefit transfer in various social sector schemes has helped the government to save Rs 34,000 crore. He also said that benefits of Aadhaar should not be undermined as it has brought efficiency in public spending and removed corruption. However, gains remained limited in the wake of mixed global cues and expiration of March series derivative contracts.

Traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, Banking and Financial Services stocks, while selling was witnessed in Metal, Pharma and IT stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Indiabulls Real Estate, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone and Housing Development and Infrastructure.  On the other hand, the top losers were Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, Idea Cellular and IDBI Bank. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 9000-9500 calls and 8500-9100 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 0.51% and reached 12.15. The 50-share Nifty was up by 29.95 points or 0.33% to settle at 9,173.75.

Nifty April 2017 futures closed at 9189.50 on Thursday at a premium of 15.75 points over spot closing of 9173.75, while Nifty May 2017 futures ended at 9216.40, at a premium of 42.65 points over spot closing. Nifty April futures saw an addition of 4.05 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 23.13 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on April 27, 2017.

From the most active contracts, HDFC Bank April 2017 futures traded at a discount of 12.30 points at 1447.70 compared with spot closing of 1,460.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 29,680.

Vedanta April 2017 futures traded at a discount of 20.45 points at 253.70 compared with spot closing of 274.15. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,268.

Reliance Industries April 2017 futures traded at a premium of 6.60 points at 1274.20 compared with spot closing of 1,267.60. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,134.

Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries April 2017 futures traded at a premium of 4.70 points at 690.70 compared with spot closing of 686.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,002.

Among Nifty calls, 9200 SP from the April month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.68 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 9100 SP from the April month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.52 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 9500 SP (2.86 mn) and that for Puts was at 9000 SP (3.10 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 9192.48--- Pivot Point 9164.42--- Support --- 9145.68.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 0.84 for April month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were KPIT Technologies (2.79), Tata Consultancy Services (2.59), Indraprastha Gas (1.95), Kaveri Seed Company (1.88) and BEML (1.39).

Among most active underlying, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 14.46 million units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract, followed by Vedanta witnessing an addition of 11.02 million units of Open Interest in the April  month contract, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 3.54 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract, HDFC Bank witnessed an addition of 6.91 million units of Open Interest in the April  month future contract and Axis Bank witnessed an addition of 7.62 million units of Open Interest in the April  month future contract.