Nifty trade jubilantly; surpasses 11,300-mark

Key equity benchmark -- Nifty -- gave powerful performance by surging over a percent on Tuesday, surpassing its psychological level of 11,300 amid strong foreign fund inflows and positive global cues. It was a positive start to the markets, as sentiment remain encouraged with report that in a major overhaul of oil and gas exploration permits, the government will not charge any share of profit on hydrocarbons produced from less explored areas as it looks to attract the elusive private and foreign investment to raise domestic output. Sentiment also got boost after the report that key policymakers from India and African nations will brainstorm on strategies for scaling up bilateral trade volume to $150 billion in the next few years at the India-Africa Project Partnerships Conclave.

In the early noon session, the index continued the gaining monument, taking support from the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) Chairman K.V. Srinivasan’s statement that rebate of state and central taxes will improve the competitiveness of made ups products in the export markets. Traders remained optimistic ahead of key macroeconomic prints, including IIP (Index of Industrial Production) data for January and CPI (consumer price index) prints for February.

All sectoral indices ended in green on NSE except IT and PSU Bank. The top gainers from the F&O segment were CG Power and Industrial Solutions, Escorts and Arvind. On the other hand, the top losers were Allahabad Bank, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise and Dewan Housing Finance Corporation. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 11,200-11,600 calls and 10,800 -11,200 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 1.36% and reached 15.09. The 50-share Nifty was up by 133.15 points 1.19% to settle at 11,301.20.

Nifty March 2019 futures closed at 11336.85 on Tuesday, at a premium of 35.65 points over spot closing of 11301.20, while Nifty April 2019 futures ended at 11389.55, at a premium of 88.35 points over spot closing. Nifty March futures saw an addition of 1.43 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 16.95 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on March 28, 2019.

From the most active contracts, Reliance Industries March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 4.85 points at 1335.70 compared with spot closing of 1330.85. The numbers of contracts traded were 35,237.

IndusInd Bank March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 13.75 points at 1577.45 compared with spot closing of 1563.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 34,054.

HDFC Bank March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 14.20 points at 2182.20 compared with spot closing of 2168.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 32,666.

ICICI Bank March 2019 futures traded at a discount of -0.90 points at 387.80 compared with spot closing of 388.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 21,782.

Tata Steel March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 2.95 points at 525.95 compared with spot closing of 523.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 17,130.

Among Nifty calls, 11,300 SP from the March month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.05 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 11,200 SP from the March month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.88 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11,400 SP (2.26 mn) and that for Puts was at 11,000 SP (3.93mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11,338.73 ---- Pivot Point 11,282.87 --- Support --- 11,245.33.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.41 for March month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Bajaj Finserv (1.92), Larsen & Toubro (1.91), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (1.59), UltraTech Cement (1.53) and Ramco Cements (1.39).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed a contraction of 1.13 million units of Open Interest in the March month futures contract, followed by ICICI Bank witnessing an addition of 3.68 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract, HDFC Bank witnessed an addition of 1.65 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract, Maruti Suzuki India witnessed an addition of 0.02 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract and IndusInd Bank witnessed an addition of 0.67 million units of Open Interest in the March month future contract.