Nifty end in green; manages to hold 9300 mark

Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- ended the day on a positive note on Monday driven by a rally in Asian markets after centrist Emmanuel Macron comfortably won the French presidential election. Traders took encouragement with Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das’ statement that the soon to be rolled out Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime will help the country to grow close to 8 percent in next fiscal 2018-19. He also stated that the GST will club nearly a dozen central and state levies into a single national sales tax, helping the country integrate into one market. Moreover, a rally in banks, cements and realty also aided the up-move. Some support also came after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out any surprises in the tax rates in the Goods & Services Tax (GST) that is proposed to be rolled out on July 1 and also assured that there will be no cascading in goods and commodities, which can even see tax rates coming down a little. The finance minister chaired GST council is scheduled to finalise and approve the rates of different commodities and services on May 18-19. However, a weak opening in Europe and expectations of another interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve in June capped the losses.

Traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, IT and PSU stocks, while selling was witnessed only in FMCG and Metal stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Indiabulls Real Estate, Housing Development & Infrastructure and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals. On the other hand, the top losers were Ajanta Pharma, Infibeam Incorporation and Colgate Palmolive (India). In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 9200-9700 calls and 8500-9400 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 2.69% and reached 11.66. The 50-share Nifty was up by 28.75 points or 0.31% to settle at 9,314.05.

Nifty May 2017 futures closed at 9343.60 on Monday at a premium of 29.55 points over spot closing of 9314.05, while Nifty June 2017 futures ended at 9341.65, at a premium of 27.60 points over spot closing. Nifty May futures saw an addition of 0.22 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 19.04 million (mn) units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on May 25, 2017.

From the most active contracts, ICICI Bank May 2017 futures traded at a premium of 1.85 points at 303.90 compared with spot closing of 302.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 24,386.

Ambuja Cements May 2017 futures traded at a premium of 3.10 points at 261.70 compared with spot closing of 258.60. The numbers of contracts traded were 18,498.

Canara Bank May 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.10 points at 391.35 compared with spot closing of 391.45. The numbers of contracts traded were 17,730.

DLF May 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.30 points at 197.70 compared with spot closing of 198.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,558.

Punjab National Bank May 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.75 points at 175.25 compared with spot closing of 176.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 13,752.

Among Nifty calls, 9400 SP from the May month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.26 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 9300 SP from the May month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.44 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 9400 SP (5.74 mn) and that for Puts was at 9300 SP (5.34 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 9335.85--- Pivot Point 9316.90--- Support --- 9295.10.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.02 for May month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Balkrishna Industries (4.33), Infibeam Incorporation (2.81), MRF (1.33), Hero Motocorp (1.32) and Britannia Industries (1.14).

Among most active underlying, ICICI Bank witnessed a contraction of 2.76 million units of Open Interest in the May month futures contract, followed by Canara Bank witnessing an addition of 2.03 million units of Open Interest in the May  month contract, DLF witnessed an addition of 0.44 million units of Open Interest in the May month contract, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 0.91 million units of Open Interest in the May  month future contract and State Bank of India witnessed a contraction of 0.40 million units of Open Interest in the May month future contract.