Feb futures, spot Nifty close at the same level

DERIVATIVES REPORT

Volumes in the derivatives segment dipped sharply and on the NSE's futures and options segment the turnover was of the order of Rs 11,057 crore with a total of slightly over three lakh contracts being traded. The open interest was close to 40 crore shares.

The Nifty February futures and the spot Nifty closed at the same value of 2,052.25 at the close.

In the futures segment, the most active contracts were those of SBI, NTPC, Tisco and Reliance Industries among others.

There was a big gain in the Nifty volume put-call ratio which went up by around 11 per cent to 0.91 though for the market as a whole the put-call ratio was more or less stagnant at 0.19.

There was activity in the Hindustan Lever counter where more than half of the in-the-money call options got exercised, one reason why the stock price opened weak in the morning. According to the data available, the strikes at which the options were exercised were 140, 145, 150 and 155.

Stocks which saw substantial addition to their open interest positions were Tata Power, Wipro, Union Bank, BPCL, SBI and MTNL while futures of Hindalco, Bank of Baroda, TCS and HCL Tech lost open interest.

In fact in the case of TCS, the open interest has been steadily declining since the last month and on Wednesday, nearly one lakh shares went down.

The cumulative FII positions as percentage of total gross market position in the derivative segment as on February 1, 2005 was 31.66 per cent.