Nifty ends flat with positive bias; hold 11,340 mark

Key equity benchmark -- Nifty -- ended Thursday’s volatile session almost flat as it witnessed marginal gain amid mixed global markets. Market made a positive start, as traders took some encouragement with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) statement that it will inject long-term liquidity worth $5 billion into the system through foreign exchange swap arrangement with banks for three years, in order to meet the durable liquidity needs of the system. Some optimism also came with report that the private companies in manufacturing sector posted a 24.9% growth in net profit in the October-December quarter of the current fiscal on annual basis, benefitting from lower tax provisions.

Market trimmed most of its gains to end flat, as traders turned cautions with Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) report that private corporate investment plans have fallen for the seventh year in a row on account of economic slowdown, poor project appraisals and huge corporate leveraging. Traders also took a note of the chairman of RBI Committee on Digital Payments, Nandan Nilekani’s statement that India is still very far away from being a less-cash economy and security issues around digital payments system needed to be addressed to make the mode more acceptable.

Traders were seen piling up positions in Realty Pharma, and Metal, while selling was witnessed in IT, Auto and PSU Bank. The top gainers from the F&O segment were NBCC (India), PC Jeweller and Infibeam Avenues. On the other hand, the top losers were Reliance Capital, Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 11,300-11,700 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 decreased by 0.83% and reached 15.15. The 50-share Nifty was up by 1.55 points 0.01% to settle at 11,343.25.

Nifty March 2019 futures closed at 11381.75 on Thursday, at a premium of 38.50 points over spot closing of 11343.25, while Nifty April 2019 futures ended at 11436.00, at a premium of 92.75 points over spot closing. Nifty March futures saw an addition of 0.16 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 18.23 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on March 28, 2019.

From the most active contracts, Yes Bank March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 0.85 points at 251.00 compared with spot closing of 250.15. The numbers of contracts traded were 43,254.

Reliance Industries March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 6.05 points at 1345.55 compared with spot closing of 1339.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 29,807.

IndusInd Bank March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 1.00 points at 1682.85 compared with spot closing of 1681.85. The numbers of contracts traded were 24,264.

HDFC Bank March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 6.85 points at 2229.90 compared with spot closing of 2223.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 21,090.

Indiabulls Housing Finance March 2019 futures traded at a premium of 3.90 points at 705.80 compared with spot closing of 701.90. The numbers of contracts traded were 15,090.

Among Nifty calls, 11,350 SP from the March month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.02 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 11,300SP from the March month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.85 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11,500 SP (2.65 mn) and that for Puts was at 11,000 SP (3.99mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11,379.88 ---- Pivot Point 11,346.82 --- Support --- 11,310.18.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.51 for March month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Oracle Financial Services Software (2.00), Bajaj Finserv (1.94), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (1.52), Larsen & Toubro (1.48), and Birlasoft (1.31).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed a contraction of 1.38 million units of Open Interest in the March month futures contract, followed by Yes Bank witnessing an addition of 3.86 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract, ICICI Bank witnessed a contraction of 3.02 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract, IndusInd Bank witnessed a contraction of 0.49 million units of Open Interest in the March month contract and State Bank of India witnessed a contraction of 1.30 million units of Open Interest in the March month future contract.