Nifty end on a quite note after a volatile day of trade

The fifty stock index -- Nifty -- extended its downfall for fourth straight day and finished the volatile session marginally in red. Global cues continued to remain subdued as uncertainty over raising the US debt ceiling kept looming large. Earlier, the Indian equity market made a flat start tracking weak cues from global indices but, due to short covering in some of the blue-chip stocks it turned positive in early trade. In the mid morning trade, market once again entered red zone and intense selling in heavyweights like Jindal Steel and ONGC contributed to market fall. Meanwhile, ONGC reported a 12% rise in quarterly profit, missing street expectations as higher subsidy payments counteract gains from a rise in crude oil and gas prices. The domestic market regained its strength in the mid afternoon trade, led by surge in banking space on the back of strong set of Q1 number reported by ICICI Bank. The bank’s net profit increased by 29.85% at Rs 1332.20 crore as compared to Rs 1025.98 crore for the corresponding quarter last year, moreover, Idea Cellular ended the trade with a gain of about five percent, soothing the markets from its Q1 performance, which came better than street expectation. FMCG sector too aided the sentiments and stocks like ITC, HUL, Godrej Consumer Products and Marico all edged higher in the trade. But in the last hour of trade, market lost its momentum and again turned choppy after shares of Adani Enterprises, NMDC, Sesa Goa and JSW Steel fell sharply on the NSE amid reports that they were among those named in the Karnataka Lokayukta report for unethical practices moreover, index heavyweight Reliance Industries too fell stridently and ended the trade with a cut of over a percent as the company reportedly came under CBI’s scanner. Finally, Nifty ended the very volatile day of trade with a marginal cut of 0.10 percentage point.

On the global front, the US markets closed lower on Thursday due to last hour sell-off, as the stalemate over raising the country’s debt limit continued while, all the Asian equity indices finished the day’s trade in the red on last trading day of the week. Moreover, all the European counterparts were trading in the red where major indices like CAC, DAX and FTSE lost in the range of 0.50-1.50 percent at this point of time. Back home, most of the sectoral indices on the NSE settled in the negative territory with CNX Realty losing the most, ending with a cut of about two and half a percent followed by CNX Energy down by 1.03% and CNX PSE down by 0.77% while, CNX FMCG up 0.82%, Bank Nifty up 0.60% and CNX IT up by 0.44% remained the major gainers on NSE sectoral space. The India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility surged 6.80% and reached 19.77, while S&P Nifty slipped by 5.75 points or 0.10% to close at 5,482.00.

The India VIX witnessed a gain of 6.80% at 19.77 on Friday as compared to 18.51 on Thursday 

The 50-share S&P CNX Nifty lost 5.75 points or 0.10% and settled at 5,482.00.Nifty August 2011 futures closed at 5,490.55, at a premium of 8.55 point over spot closing of 5,482.00, while Nifty September 2011 futures were at 5,508.00 at a premium of 26.00 points over spot closing. The near month August 2011 derivatives contract expires on Thursday, August 25, 2011. Nifty August futures saw addition of 1.69 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 20.60 mn units.

From the most active contract by contract value, ICICI Bank August 2011 futures closed at a premium of 1.70 points at 1040.00 compared with spot closing of 1038.30. The number of contracts traded was 42,885.

Adani Enterprises August 2011 futures were at a premium of 2.50 point at 590.50 compared with spot closing of 588.00. The number of contracts traded was 25,129.

SBI’s August 2011 futures were at a premium of 12.00 at 2350.00 compared with spot closing of 2338.00. The number of contracts traded was 18,794.

RIL August 2011 futures were at a premium of 2.50 at 830.50 compared with spot closing of 828.00. The number of contracts traded was 25,426.

Bata India August 2011 futures were at a premium of 1.60 at 659.50 compared with spot closing of 657.90. The number of contracts traded was 7,126.

Among Nifty calls, 5500 SP from the August month expiry was the most active call with addition of 0.90 million or 22.79%.

Among Nifty puts, 5500 SP from the August month expiry was the most active put with addition of 1.51 million or 30.69%.

The maximum Call OI outstanding for Calls was at 5600 SP (4.87 mn) and that for Puts was at 5500 SP (6.45 mn).

The respective Support and Resistance levels are: Resistance 5516.88-- Pivot Point 5485.41-- Support 5450.53.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) OI wise stood at 1.11 for August -month contract.

The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were IRB Infra 6.00, Sun Pharma 1.87, Siemens 1.54%, NCC 1.50% and Maruti 1.2.

Among most active underlying, ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 1.88% of Open Interest (OI) in the August month futures contract followed by Reliance witnessed an addition of 4.07% of Open Interest (OI) in the near month contract. Meanwhile State bank of India witnessed an addition of 6.23% of OI in the August month futures.