Nifty settle above 11,600 mark; bid adieu FY19 in style

Nifty extended its gaining streak for the second straight session and the key benchmark snapped the day’s trade with decent gains of about 50 points led by Metal and Pharma stocks. Barometer started the trade with marginal gains, as traders took some support with Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu’s statement that India's merchandise and services export would touch $540-billion mark this fiscal. He said exports are growing at a healthy pace and shipments of goods would reach over $330 billion. Similarly, services exports would touch about $200 billion. Some comfort also came with credit rating agency Fitch Ratings’ report that non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of Indian banking sector improved during the first nine months of the current financial year, on the back of lower fresh slippages and better recoveries.

As the day progressed the gauges added to early gains and surged to register day’s highs at afternoon deals, as traders took encouragement as Finance Commission Chairman N K Singh made a case for setting up a fiscal council as an institutional mechanism to monitor fiscal consolidation roadmap of the Centre and state governments. He also said fiscal federalism is a dynamic process and 'a Work in Motion'. Traders also took note of Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu’s statement that farmers were critical for the well-being of the nation and they play a huge role in ensuring and maintaining home grown food security in India.

All sectoral indices ended in green on NSE except PSU Bank and PVT Bank. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Jindal Steel & Power, Adani Enterprises and Indiabulls Housing Finance. On the other hand, the top losers were Suzlon Energy, GAIL and IndusInd Bank. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 11,800-12,200 calls and 11,300-11,700 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 3.20% and reached 17.18. The 50-share Nifty was up by 53.90 points 0.47% to settle at 11,623.90.

Nifty April 2019 futures closed at 11679.90 on Friday, at a premium of 56.00 points over spot closing of 11623.90, while Nifty May 2019 futures ended at 11738.40, at a premium of 114.50 points over spot closing. Nifty April futures saw a contraction of 0.47 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 16.44 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on April 25, 2019.

From the most active contracts, Indiabulls Housing Finance April 2019 futures traded at a premium of 0.20 points at 860.90 compared with spot closing of 860.70. The numbers of contracts traded were 33,324.

Reliance Industries April 2019 futures traded at a premium of 9.55 points at 1372.60 compared with spot closing of 1363.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 22,721.

Maruti Suzuki India April 2019 futures traded at a premium of 47.40 points at 6719.40 compared with spot closing of 6672.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 22,565.

Yes Bank April 2019 futures traded at a premium of 2.45 points at 276.95 compared with spot closing of 274.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 22,482.

Tata Steel April 2019 futures traded at a premium of 4.30 points at 524.95 compared with spot closing of 520.65. The numbers of contracts traded were 21,238.

Among Nifty calls, 11,700 SP from the April month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.19 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 11,600 from the April month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.30 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 12,000 SP (2.27mn) and that for Puts was at 11,500 SP (2.13mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11,646.12 ---- Pivot Point 11,608.13 --- Support --- 11,585.92.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.12 for April month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Bosch (1.82), Tata Motors--DVR (1.65), Infosys (1.58) Adani Power (1.46) and Max Financial Services (1.31).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 0.74 million units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract, followed by State Bank of India witnessing a contraction of 2.00 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract, Maruti Suzuki India witnessed an addition of 0.11 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract, ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 0.53 million units of Open Interest in the April month contract and Yes Bank witnessed an addition of 0.24 million units of Open Interest in the April month future contract.