The Hindu Business Line : Reliance remains active

WITH the spot market witnessing a severe beating, the activity at the derivative segment on the NSE dipped on Wednesday, just ahead of the expiry of the February contracts. The F&O segment witnessed a turnover of Rs 15,915 crore as against Tuesday's Rs 17,750 crore. The near-month February contracts are expiring on Thursday.

Index futures: The NSE S&P CNX Nifty registered the day's high at 1834.10 and then witnessed a steep decline to touch a day's low of 1779 before settling at 1786.80 with a loss 1.90 per cent over the previous day's close of 1821.35.

The Nifty February futures ended the day at 1788.70 while open interest positions slipped by over 25 per cent. Though the February contract closed with a marginal premium to the spot close, the unmatched order book on the NSE suggests bearish outlook for the market. According to the NSE data, ask side calls outnumbered the bid side by over 2.5 times.

On the other hand, the March contracts closed the day in discount to the spot at 1785.60 while open interest positions surged by over 53 per cent indicating some shifting of positions to March contracts.

Another factor indicating downward bias for Nifty was cost of carry, which has been witnessing a steady declining trend of late.

However, the April contract closed with higher premium at 1792.20 and added over 48 per cent to its open positions.

Stock futures: Despite only one day is available for trading, the February contracts were the most actively traded counters. Among them, Reliance, Tata Steel, Satyam Computer, Tata Motors and SBI were the top traded counters. Among the March series, Reliance continued its dominance with hectic activity.

The Reliance February contracts closed the day sharply lower at Rs 555.85 as against the previous day's close of Rs 567.30 and in slight premium to the spot close of Rs 555.20. Open interest positions declined by over 27 per cent.

The Reliance March contract closed the day at Rs 557.90 (Rs 571.05) with open interest improving by over 43 per cent.

Index options: Among the calls, the February 1800-strike, the 1820-strike and the 1850-strike witnessed active trading. The Feb 1800-strike, the 1850-strike and the 1780-strike were the most active contracts among put options.

Equity options: Out of 53 securities, options on 52 underlying securities got traded. Among them, the Feb 300 calls on Satyam Computer, the Feb 440 calls on Tata Steel, the Feb 520 calls on Tata Motors, the Feb 560 calls on Reliance and the Feb 300 puts on Satyam witnessed keen activity.

FII statistics: Cumulative FII positions as percentage of total gross market position in the derivative segment as on February 24, stood at 19.59 per cent.