Nifty ends firm; logs notable gains

The local equity benchmark--Nifty--ended the last trading day of the week on firm note, with notable gains of over 50 points. After a cautious start, the index remained sluggish during early morning deals, as street got concerned with NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant’s statement that India needs to cut down on oil imports and switch towards electric mobility, and stressed on the Centre’s focus towards urban mobility. However, the market soon turned positive, supported by credit rating agency, ICRA’s latest report that aggregate revenues of Indian corporate sector witnessed rise of 17.1% during the first quarter of the current fiscal year (Q1FY19), on a lower base in the year-ago period due to impact of GST implementation. Adding some gains, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu said that with phenomenal changes in social and economic sector reforms, India will become a five-trillion-dollar economy in seven years from the present 2.6 trillion dollars.

Domestic sentiments got improved further at the end of session, amid reports that the newly notified annual GST return forms will go a long way in checking tax evasion by providing the entire financial transactions logged by an assessee to the revenue department. Investors were also positive with a report that the Centre is planning to slash the number of GST rate slabs from the present five to two in the near future. Traders took note of Federation of Indian Export Organisations’ statement that the commerce ministry should direct the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) to provide liberal insurance coverage to consignments with a view to promote overseas shipments. 

All the sectoral indices ended in green on the NSE except PSU Bank. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Aurobindo Pharma, Hero MotoCorp and Page Industries. On the other hand, the top losers were SREI Infrastructure Finance, Yes Bank and Adani Enterprises. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 11,600-12,000 calls and 11,300 -11,600 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 1.58% and reached 13.94. The 50-share Nifty was up by 52.20 points or 0.45% to settle at 11,589.10.

Nifty September 2018 futures closed at 11632.95 on Friday, at a premium of 43.85 points over spot closing of 11589.10, while Nifty October 2018 futures ended at 11666.80, at a premium of 77.70 points over spot closing. Nifty September futures saw an addition of 0.64 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 28.34 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on September 27, 2018.

From the most active contracts, Aurobindo Pharma September 2018 futures traded at a premium of 2.10 points at 804.65 compared with spot closing of 802.55. The numbers of contracts traded were 50,955.

Yes Bank September 2018 futures traded at a premium of 1.80 points at 325.45 compared with spot closing of 323.65. The numbers of contracts traded were 50,197.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries September 2018 futures traded at a premium of 0.80 points at 665.60 compared with spot closing of 664.80. The numbers of contracts traded were 37,794.

Tata Motors September 2018 futures traded at a premium of 1.15 points at 278.20 compared with spot closing of 277.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 33,166.

Reliance Industries September 2018 futures traded at a premium of 4.30 points at 1281.35 compared with spot closing of 1277.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 27,122.      
Among Nifty calls, 11600 SP from the August month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.21 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 11500 SP from the August month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.60 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11,800 SP (4.00mn) and that for Puts was at 11,500 SP (4.76mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11,633.27 ---- Pivot Point 11,558.83 --- Support --- 11,514.67.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.26 for August month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Repco Home Finance (1.76), Axis Bank (1.20), Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (1.05), Shree Cement (1.00) and Chennai Petroleum Corporation (0.94).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed a contraction of 1.21 million units of Open Interest in the September month futures contract, followed by Aurobindo Pharma witnessing a contraction of 0.40 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract, Yes Bank witnessed an addition of 16.78 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries witnessed an addition of 0.18 million units of Open Interest in the September month contract and Maruti Suzuki India witnessed an addition of 0.05 million units of Open Interest in the September month future contract.