Nifty clocks fresh closing high

Nifty -- ended the Thursday’s trade at fresh record closing high on Thursday, despite making negative start in the morning. Initially, market made negative start and remained in red zone till late morning session, as traders were cautious with rating agency Moody's statement that India's fiscal deficit projections are higher than expected and slower consolidation will constrain its fiscal strength over the medium term. It also expects India's nominal GDP growth to rise to closer to 17 percent in fiscal 2021, higher than 14.4 percent projected in the Budget. However, index erased all its losses and entered into green zone, as Finance Ministry has released the 14th installment of Rs 6,000 crore to states to meet the GST compensation shortfall, taking the total amount of fund released so far to Rs 84,000 crore. Till now, 76 per cent of the total estimated GST compensation shortfall has been released to states and 3 UTs. Out of this, an amount of Rs 76,616.16 crore has been released to 23 states and Rs 7,383.84 crore to the 3 UTs with Legislative Assembly (Delhi, J&K, Puducherry). Further, market extended its gains till the last leg, as Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash informed the Lok Sabha that in the last six financial years (2014-20), India has received FDI inflow worth USD 358.30 billion which is 53 per cent of the FDI reported in the last 20 years (USD 681.87 billion).

Most of the sectoral indices ended in green except IT. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Tata Power, Apollo Tyres and Balkrishna Industries. On the other hand, the top losers were Asian Paints, Shriram Transport Finance Company and Godrej Properties. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 14100 - 15,500 calls and 13,700 - 14,500 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.

India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility decreased by 2.62% and reached 23.12. The 50 share Nifty up by 105.70 points or 0.71% to settle at 14,895.65.

Nifty February 2021 futures closed at 14890.00 (LTP) on Thursday, at a discount of 5.65 points over spot closing of 14895.65, while Nifty March 2021 futures ended at 14929.95 (LTP), at a premium of 34.30 points over spot closing.  Nifty February futures saw an addition of 20,365 units, taking the total open interest (Contracts) to 1,55,318 units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on February 25, 2021 (Provisional).

From the most active contracts, SBIN February 2021 futures traded at a premium of 2.05 points at 360.00 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 357.95. The numbers of contracts traded were 80,338 (Provisional).

ITC February 2021 futures traded at a premium of 0.80 points at 230.85 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 230.05. The numbers of contracts traded were 40,948 (Provisional).

Reliance Industries February 2021 futures traded at a premium of 3.80 points at 1925.30 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1921.50. The numbers of contracts traded were 33,173 (Provisional).

Bharti Airtel February 2021 futures traded at a premium of 3.15 points at 602.95 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 599.80. The numbers of contracts traded were 32,953 (Provisional).

ICICI Bank February 2021 futures traded at a premium of 1.90 points at 628.25 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 626.35. The numbers of contracts traded were 26,736 (Provisional).

Among, Nifty calls, 15000 SP from the February month expiry was the most active call with an addition of 846 units open interests. Among Nifty puts, 14000 SP from the February month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 5,556 units open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 15000 SP (19,351 units) and that for Puts was at 14000 SP (49,744 units). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 14,967.98 -- Pivot Point 14,841.37 -- Support -- 14,769.03.

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at (1.64) for February month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on Vedanta (1.35), Shriram Transport Finance Company (1.25), ICICI Bank (1.19), SBIN (1.15) and HDFC Bank (1.10).

Among most active underlying, SBIN witnessed an addition of 5,548 units of Open Interest in the February month futures contract followed by Tata Motors witnessed a contraction of 20 units of Open Interest in the February month futures contract, Bharti Airtel witnessed an addition of 4,186 units of Open Interest in the February month futures contract, Bajaj Finance witnessed an addition of 2,347 units of Open Interest in the February month futures contract and ITC witnessed an addition of 2,068 units of Open Interest in the February month futures contract (Provisional).