Nifty settles in green with notable gains

The local equity benchmark -- Nifty -- settled in green on Thursday with notable gains of 0.37%. The index traded in green territory throughout the session as domestic sentiments remained upbeat after International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Deputy Director Abdel Senhadji praised Indian government’s efforts to lower debt, saying that the country has relatively high debt to GDP ratio at 70 per cent of the GDP in 2017 but the government is trying to bring it down over the medium term with the right policies. The market participants took some encouragement with a private report stating that India will claim the top spot among the world's fastest-growing major economies this year. Though, the report noted that rising trade tensions between the United States and China may restrain that growth. Some support also came with another private report stating that the Reserve Bank of India is expected to go for a 25 basis points rate cut in key rates, due to normal monsoon forecast from Indian Meteorological Department. Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu promised exporters of taking up the Goods and Service Tax (GST) refund issue with the Finance Ministry. Investors shrugged off SBI Research’s report which pegged the cash shortfall in the system at a whopping Rs 70,000 crore, which is a third of the monthly withdrawals at ATMs, even as government and Reserve Bank have asserted that there is no currency shortage. Traders also paid no heed to former finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement that the ghost of demonetisation has come back to haunt the government and alleged that the Rs 2,000 notes were printed only to help hoarders. In the wake of cash crunch in some parts of the country, he also said there was a possibility that people have lost confidence in the banking system due to the bank scams and they were not putting their surplus money into the banks.

All the sectoral indices ended in green on the NSE except Fin Service. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Hindalco, National Aluminium Company and Vedanta. On the other hand, the top losers were Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Balrampur Chini Mills. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 10,700-11,000 calls and 10,200-10,500 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 2.57% and reached 13.75. The 50-share Nifty was up by 39.10 points or 0.37% to settle at 10,565.30.

Nifty April 2018 futures closed at 10578.10 on Thursday, at a premium of 12.80 points over spot closing of 10,565.30, while Nifty May 2018 futures ended at 10,602.40, at a premium of 37.10 points over spot closing. Nifty April futures saw an addition of 0.05 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 26.52 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on April 26, 2018.

From the most active contracts, Vedanta April 2018 futures traded at a premium of 1.90 points at 312.35 compared with spot closing of 310.45. The numbers of contracts traded were 39,969.

IndusInd Bank April 2018 futures traded at a discount of 8.45 points at 1826.55 compared with spot closing of 1835.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 28,747.

Hindalco Industries April 2018 futures traded at a discount of 0.15 points at 264.05 compared with spot closing of 264.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 26,491.

Tata Steel April 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.65 points at 622.05 compared with spot closing of 621.40. The numbers of contracts traded were 24,721.

Yes Bank April 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.75 points at 319.25 compared with spot closing of 318.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 16,619.

Among Nifty calls, 10600 SP from the April month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.20 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 10500 SP from the April month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.59 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 10700 SP (5.06mn) and that for Puts was at 10500 SP (5.44mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 10,576.27 ---- Pivot Point 10,561.23 --- Support --- 10550.27.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.44 for April month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Hindalco (1.81), Vedanta (1.33), ICICI Bank (1.29), Hindustan Unilever (1.28) and Wipro (1.20).

Among most active underlying, Hindalco witnessed an addition of 1.56 million units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract, followed by Tata Consultancy Services witnessing an addition of 0.25 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract, Vedanta witnessed a contraction of 4.05 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract, Tata Steel witnessed an addition of 0.16 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract and IndusInd Bank witnessed an addition of 0.50 million units of Open Interest in the April month future contract.