Nifty ends at fresh closing high, settles just shy of 10,900 mark

Continuing its record setting spree, the local benchmark Nifty ended at fresh closing high on Friday, with gains of around three fourth of a percent. After a cautious start, the index soon gathered momentum and traded with optimism, backed by GST Council’s decision to cut rates on 29 items and 54 categories of services with effect from 25 January. The Council also decided to divide Rs 35,000 crore IGST collections between centre and states, in order to help tide over the revenue shortfalls being faced by most states. Traders took some encouragement with the rating agency, Ind-Ra’s projection that the country's economic growth will improve to 7.1 percent in the next fiscal year 2018-19 from 6.5 percent in the current year 2017-18, supported by robust consumption demand and low commodity prices. Sentiments also remained upbeat with Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu’s statement that various decisions of the central government, including demonetisation and GST, are likely to have a positive impact in the coming years. Some support also came with Union Minister Suresh Prabhu’s statement that the commerce ministry is working on a strategy to diversify India's export basket in a bid to boost shipments. Heavy buying in last leg of trade helped Nifty hit fresh closing high and it settled just shy of 10,900 mark.

All the sectoral indices ended in green on the NSE. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Jubilant Foodworks, Biocon and NIIT Technologies. On the other hand, the top losers were Balrampur Chini Mills, Hindustan Zinc and Ambuja Cements. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 10500-11100 calls and 10000-10700 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 0.16% and reached 13.98. The 50-share Nifty was up by 77.70 points or 0.72% to settle at 10,894.70.

Nifty January 2018 futures closed at 10901.05 on Friday, at a premium of 6.35 points over spot closing of 10894.70, while Nifty February 2018 futures ended at 10921.00, at a premium of 26.30 points over spot closing. Nifty January futures saw a contraction of 0.06 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 30.68 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on January 25, 2018.

From the most active contracts, Jubilant Foodworks January 2018 futures traded at a discount of 7.90 points at 2093.10 compared with spot closing of 2101.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 35,751.

HDFC Bank January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 1.05 points at 1950.40 compared with spot closing of 1949.35. The numbers of contracts traded were 25,258.

ITC January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.10 points at 274.10 compared with spot closing of 274.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 23,480.

Yes Bank January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.05 points at 348.80 compared with spot closing of 348.75. The numbers of contracts traded were 22,310.

Indiabulls Housing Finance January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.90 point at 1304.20 compared with spot closing of 1303.30. The numbers of contracts traded were 21,927.

Among Nifty calls, 10900 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.76 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 10800 SP from the January month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 1.31 million open interests.  The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11000 SP (5.85 mn) and that for Puts was at 10500 SP (7.57 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 10936.40--- Pivot Point 10865.15--- Support --- 10823.45.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.66 for January month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were the Ramco Cements (1.72), ICICI Bank (1.49), Tata Consultancy Services (1.38), Infosys (1.31) and Torrent Pharmaceuticals (1.21).

Among most active underlying, HDFC Bank witnessed a contraction of 1.02 million units of Open Interest in the January month futures contract, followed by Jubilant Foodworks  witnessing  an addition of 0.31 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, Reliance Industries witnessed a contraction of 2.61 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, ITC witnessed a contraction of  5.26 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract and State Bank of India witnessed  a contraction of 7.52 million units of Open Interest in the January month future contract.