Nifty ends at record closing high for second session

After seesawing between the green and red territory for most part of the day, domestic benchmark -- Nifty -- closed Tuesday’s trading session at record closing high. Market made a cautious start, as traders remain concerned with weak macro-economic data. India’s retail inflation spiked to five year high. India's retail inflation spiked to a five-year high in December, breaching the upper end of the RBI's 2-6 percent target for the first time since July 2016. Inflation increased notably to 7.35 percent from 5.54 percent in November, driven by higher food prices. Also, wholesale prices based inflation surged to 2.59 per cent in December, as against 0.58 per cent in November due to increase in prices of food articles like onion and potato. The annual inflation, based on monthly WPI, was at 3.46 per cent during the same month a year ago (December 2018).

Index continued its choppy trade, as traders remain caution amid reports that the deepening slowdown has it impact on the deal market in 2019 with mergers and acquisitions (M&As) plummeting over 34 per cent to $67.1 billion but still making it the second best, on the back of the $6-billion ArcelorMittal takeover of Essar Steel. However, in last leg of trade, market picks up the speed and ended session with gain of 32 points, as sentiment got a boost with Reserve Bank of India remained a net purchaser of the US dollar in November, buying $6.928 billion from the spot market on a net basis. The RBI had bought $7.458 billion of the greenback and sold $530 million in the spot market in the reporting month.

Most of the NSE sectoral indices ended in green, except Bank, PSU Bank and PVT Bank. The top gainers from the F&O segment Tata Global Beverages, Berger Paints and Aurobindo Pharma. On the other hand, the top losers were Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank and Shriram Transport Finance Company. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 12250 12,700 calls and 11,900 12,350 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 2.54% and reached 13.91. The 50 share Nifty was up by 32.75 points or 0.27% to settle at 12,362.30.

Nifty January 2020 futures closed at 12395.00 (LTP) on Tuesday, at a premium of 32.70 points over spot closing of 12362.30 , while Nifty February 2020 futures ended at 12434.00 (LTP), at a premium of 71.70 points over spot closing. Nifty December futures saw an addition of 13.90 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 0.61 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on January 30, 2020 (Provisional).

From the most active contracts, IndusInd Bank January 2020 futures traded at a premium of 7.70 points at 1485.90 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1478.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 81,450 (Provisional).

Tata Global Beverages January 2020 futures traded at a discount of 1.35 points at 387.75 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 389.10. The numbers of contracts traded were 29,494 (Provisional).

State Bank of India January 2020 futures traded at a premium of 1.50 points at 329.60 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 328.10. The numbers of contracts traded were 18,251 (Provisional).

Reliance Industries January 2020 futures traded at a premium of 6.10 points at 1535.20 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1529.10. The numbers of contracts traded were 17,670 (Provisional).

Tata Steel January 2020 futures traded at a premium of 2.55 points at 501.10 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 498.55. The numbers of contracts traded were 17,362 (Provisional).

Among, Nifty calls, 12400 SP from the January month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 0.20 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 12300 from the January month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 0.35 units open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 12500 SP (2.73 mn) and that for Puts was at 12000 SP (4.57 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 12,388.13 -- Pivot Point 12,348.42 -- Support --12,322.58.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at 1.47 for January month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on Shree Cement (1.27), Tata Global Beverages (1.27), UltraTech Cement (1.22), Escorts (1.21) and Bajaj Finance (1.07).

Among most active underlying, IndusInd Bank witnessed an addition of 1.82 million units of Open Interest in the January month futures contract, followed by Tata Global Beverages witnessing an addition of 6.57 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 0.93 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract, State Bank of India witnessed an addition of 5.48 million units of Open Interest in the January month contract and Infosys witnessed an addition of 1.85 million units of Open Interest in the January month future contract (Provisional).