Nifty ends lower for fifth straight session

Indian equity benchmark Nifty extended its losing streak for fifth straight session on Monday, tracking weakness in Asian and European peers. The index traded lackluster throughout the day, as anxiety spread among the investors with Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian’s statement that Indian economy continues to face multiple challenges and stressed on the need to tackle them on various fronts, such as exchange rate, public investments while maintaining macroeconomic stability. Cautiousness also crept with the derivatives expiry due on Thursday along with lingering North Korea tensions. Besides, banking shares too failed to get relief with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the government will expeditiously work with the banking system to strengthen them. However, markets showed marginal recovery in late trade to end off day’s lows with traders taking some solace from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that despite ‘unsupportive’ global factors, the government has broadly put the economy on track. Meanwhile, the government has initiated an anti-dumping probe on imports of straight length bars and rods of alloy steel from China following complaints from the domestic industry.

All the sectoral indices ended in red on the NSE. The top gainers from the F&O segment were United Breweries, Andhra Bank and Dish TV India. On the other hand, the top losers were Infibeam Incorporation, Dewan Housing Finance Corporation and InterGlobe Aviation. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 9900-10500 calls and 9500-10000 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 4.14% and reached 13.34. The 50-share Nifty was down by 91.80 points or 0.92% to settle at 9,872.60.

Nifty September 2017 futures closed at 9878.65 on Monday at a premium of 6.05 points over spot closing of 9,872.60, while Nifty October 2017 futures ended at 9911.75 at a premium of 39.15 points over spot closing. Nifty September futures saw a contraction of 0.92 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 19.55 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on September 28, 2017.

From the most active contracts, Infosys September 2017 futures traded at a discount of 3.10 point at 897.90 compared with spot closing of 901.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 20,392.

Tata Steel September 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.50 points at 641.80 compared with spot closing of 642.30. The numbers of contracts traded were 18,886.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries September 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.10 points at 505.90 compared with spot closing of 506.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,522.

Reliance Industries September 2017 futures traded at a premium of 1.25 points at 822.25 compared with spot closing of 821.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,163.

Yes Bank September 2017 futures traded at a discount of 0.90 points at 359.80 compared with spot closing of 360.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 15,759.

Among Nifty calls, 10000 SP from the September month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 2.29 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 9,800 SP from the September month expiry was the most active put with a addition of 0.62 million open interests.  The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 10000 SP (7.04 mn) and that for Puts was at 9900 SP (4.17 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 9950.05--- Pivot Point 9883.05--- Support --- 9805.60.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 0.81 for September month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were the Ramco Cements (2.87), Oracle Financial Services Software (1.81), Indiabulls Real Estate (1.77), Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (1.39) and Kajaria Ceramics (1.17).

Among most active underlying, Tata Steel witnessed a contraction of 3.04 million units of Open Interest in the September month futures contract, followed by Reliance Industries witnessing a contraction of 3.55 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 10.33 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract, Vedanta witnessed a contraction of  3.92 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract and Maruti Suzuki India witnessed a contraction of 0.35 million units of Open Interest in the September month future contract.