The Hindu Business Line : Bourses witness lacklustre bout

TRADING was listless last week on account of Deepavali-related holidays. Equities gently drifted down towards the end of the week in the absence of a positive trigger. On Friday, the BSE Sensitive Index closed at 2,956.84 points, a shade higher than the preceding Friday's close.

October's trading pattern- firmness in technology stocks accompanied by a decline in other sectors- continued last week. At the end of the last trading session, other than technology stocks, only a handful of other stocks held their ground. The outlook does not appear bright in the near future.

Options: Narrow movement in spot market prices resulted in actively traded call options as well as put options ending the week out-of-the-money. In the absence of a large move upwards in technology stocks- the most actively traded derivatives contracts- call option contracts ended out-of-the-money. Similarly, in the absence of a marked fall in them, most of the popular put option contracts also ended the week out-of-the-money.

The trading in options was dominated by November contracts. As we are in the early days of the month, the trend is likely to continue for a fortnight. Generally, derivative trading is dominated by near-month contracts. The market does not seem to have the necessary depth to trigger trading in longer duration contracts.

Satyam's November contract at a strike price of 250 registered a volume of 3,074 contracts. This contract ended the week out-of-the-money.

Reliance's November contract at a strike price of 260 and Infosys' November contract at a strike of 4,000 both ended the week out of the money. About 1,938 contracts of Reliance changed hands, while 1,362 contracts of Infosys were traded last week.

Satyam's November call option contract at a strike price of 240 was the most popular one last week. About 3,263 contracts of the same changed hands. Satyam 240 ended the week in-the-money.

Among put options, the top three contracts in terms of volume all ended the week out-of-the-money. Satyam's November contracts at a strike of 240 and 230, and Reliance's November contract at a strike of 250 ended the week out-of-the-money. The volume in Satyam's contract at a strike of 240 was 2,874 contracts, while the volume in Reliance was 885 contracts.

Reliance's November put option contract at a strike of 260 was one of the few to end the week in-the-money. The volume at the counter was 841 contracts.

Futures: The trading pattern in the futures segment was predictable. One, the trading was almost completely confined to November contracts. Second, the most actively traded stocks remained unchanged from earlier weeks. Satyam, Reliance, Infosys, Digital GlobalSoft and Hindustan Petroleum's November futures contracts were the counters where most of the action took place.

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