Nifty ends with gains for second consecutive day

Indian equity benchmark--Nifty--finished first day of the trading week with gains of above half a percent. Market made a positive start, as traders took support with US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) president Mukesh Aghi’s statement that India needs to look at environmental, social and governmental (ESG) factors to attract major investors and get the sustained foreign direct investment (FDI) of $100 billion per annum that the country needs to get back to 8-9 percent growth. Further, market continued its fine- fettle trade, as traders remained optimistic with Finance Ministry’s statement that GST has reduced the rate at which people have to pay tax, helped increase compliance and doubled taxpayer base to 1.24 crore. The ministry said before goods and services tax (GST), the combination of value-added tax (VAT), excise, sales tax and their cascading effect resulted in high standard rate of tax up to 31 per cent. In afternoon session, the index extended its gains to trade above 11450 mark, as investments through participatory notes (P-notes) in the domestic capital market soared to Rs 63,288 crore till July-end.

All of the NSE sectoral indices ended in green except Realty, Pharma and IT. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Vodafone Idea, Jubilant Foodworks and Adani Enterprises. On the other hand, the top losers were Apollo Tyres, Power Finance Corporation and DLF. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 11,300 - 11,600 calls and 10,900 - 11,100 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 4.08% and reached 19.12. The 50 share Nifty up by 94.85 points or 0.83% to settle at 11,466.45.

Nifty August 2020 futures closed at 11478.15 (LTP) on Monday, at a premium of 11.70 points over spot closing of 11466.45, while Nifty September 2020 futures ended at 11488.00 (LTP), at a premium of 21.55 points over spot closing. Nifty August futures saw an addition of 0.14 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 9.50 mn units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on August 27, 2020 (Provisional).

From the most active contracts, Reliance Industries August 2020 futures traded at a premium of 6.05 points at 2106 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 2099.95. The numbers of contracts traded were 50,635 (Provisional).

ICICI Bank August 2020 futures traded at a premium of 0.85 points at 380.65 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 379.80. The numbers of contracts traded were 49,726 (Provisional).

Bajaj Fiance August 2020 futures traded at a premium of 13.15 points at 3506.15 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 3493.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 38,868 (Provisional).

Bharti Airtel August 2020 futures traded at a premium of 1.45 points at 532.45 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 531.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 38,856 (Provisional).

HDFC Bank August 2020 futures traded at a discount of 3.80 points at 1111 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1114.80. The numbers of contracts traded were 38,391 (Provisional).

Among, Nifty calls, 11500 SP from the August month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 0.03 million open interests. Among Nifty puts, 11400 SP from the August month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 1.81 million open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 11500 SP (3.66 mn) and that for Puts was at 11000 SP (4.19 mn). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 11,505.58 -- Pivot Point 11,458.12 -- Support -- 11,418.98.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at (1.41) for August month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on JSW Steel (1.73), Maruti Suzuki India (1.41), Ashok Leyland (1.29), Vedanta (1.16) and Adani Enterprises (1.14).

Among most active underlying, Reliance Industries witnessed an addition of 4.18 million units of Open Interest in the August month futures contract, followed by Bajaj Finance witnessing an addition of 1.02 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract, Bharti Airtel witnessed an addition of 10.56 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract, HDFC Bank witnessed an addition of 1.44 million units of Open Interest in the August month contract and SBIN witnessed an addition of 4.41 million units of Open Interest in the August month future contract (Provisional).