F&O Outlook: Indecisiveness plagues Street

The markets have been plagued by indecisiveness in the last three trading sessions. The Nifty, however, retained its support near 4300, which is 38.2 per cent of the retracement from 3790 to 4650.

The Nifty PCR OI at the 4300 and 4400 strike prices stood at 1.29 and 0.89 respectively. The index is therefore likely to trade between 4300 and 4400 during the current series.

The rollovers in stock and index futures remained subdued two days ahead of the series expiry. The marketwide rollovers stood at 39.46 per cent of the total OI compared to 44.84 per cent during the same time last month.

While the stock futures witnessed comparatively high rollovers due to new additions, the Nifty September futures rollovers were 15.92 million shares compared to 19.49 million shares last month. The Nifty September futures are being rolled over at a discount of eight points, which suggests the creation of short positions.

However, there has been buying interest in out-of-the-money call options, with the September 4400, 4500 and 4600 call options adding open interest of 2.78 million shares in the last three trading days. The option traders expect the Nifty to trade above 4400 in the next month series.

Most heavyweights have reported very low rollovers, with the exception of some banking counters. The private banks HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank witnessed rollovers of over 55 per cent each, while SBI saw rollovers of 46 per cent. Among the telecom futures, Reliance Communication had rollovers of 50 per cent, Idea Cellular 46 per cent and Bharti Airtel 27 per cent.