Nifty ends at fresh closing high

Key Indian benchmark Nifty ended at fresh closing high on Monday, surpassing its crucial psychological level of 10,950. The index made a cautious start but immediately started moving in the northward direction, as sentiments remained optimistic with a report enlightening that a greater proportion of provident fund savings could be headed for the stock market with shares rising to successive records in past weeks. Such a move could more than double the provident fund money invested in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over time. Traders also took some encouragement with the private report stating that India will overtake China to be the fastest growing large economy in 2018 and the country’s equity market will become the fifth largest in the world. Besides, broadly positive Asian cues, coupled with healthy buying in IT and Realty stocks, also pulled key equity index to end at fresh high during the late noon deals. The market participants took note of Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu’s statement that regulation on businesses should be kept to a minimum and they should not stifle the possibilities of investment, in order to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) and spur domestic financing.

All the sectoral indices, barring Metal and PSU Bank, ended in green on the NSE. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Jubilant Foodworks, Just Dial and BHEL. On the other hand, the top losers were HPCL, GAIL and Wipro. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 10800-11200 calls and 10300-10900 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 10.08% and reached 15.39. The 50-share Nifty was up by 71.50 points or 0.66% to settle at 10,966.20.

Nifty January 2018 futures closed at 10968.00 on Monday, at a premium of 1.80 points over spot closing of 10966.20, while Nifty February 2018 futures ended at 10992.50, at a premium of 26.30 points over spot closing. Nifty January futures saw a contraction of 2.85 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 27.83 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on January 25, 2018.

From the most active contracts, Axis Bank January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.95 points at 612.25 compared with spot closing of 611.30. The numbers of contracts traded were 56,411.

Reliance Industries January 2018 futures traded at a discount of 0.40 points at 969.80 compared with spot closing of 970.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 48,229.

Jubilant Foodworks January 2018 futures traded at a discount of 3.05 points at 2266.45 compared with spot closing of 2269.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 30,633.

Tata Consultancy Services January 2018 futures traded at a premium of 22.85 points at 3112.85 compared with spot closing of 3090.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 27,804.

Indiabulls Housing Finance January 2018 futures traded at a discount of 4.35 point at 1357.65 compared with spot closing of 1362.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 20,368.

Among Nifty calls, 11000 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.28 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 10900 SP from the January month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 1.74 million open interests.  The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11000 SP (5.11 mn) and that for Puts was at 10500 SP (7.07 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11000.40 --- Pivot Point 10940.90 --- Support --- 10906.70.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.81 for January month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were the Tech Mahindra (1.55), ICICI Bank (1.43), Tata Consultancy Services (1.37), Torrent Pharmaceuticals (1.32) and Jindal Steel & Power (1.17).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed a contraction of 4.51 million units of Open Interest in the January month futures contract, followed by Axis Bank witnessing a contraction of 10.04 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, TCS witnessed a contraction of 2.21 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, Jubilant Foodworks  witnessed a contraction of  0.69 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract and HDFC Bank witnessed  a contraction of 1.99 million units of Open Interest in the January month future contract.