Nifty Futures End Lower
The derivatives market witnessed modest activity with S&P CNX Nifty closing higher by 0.15 points at 1064.35 as investors moved in to book profits after three consecutive days of gains and as war fears re-emerged.
The Nifty futures fell and ended below previous levels. Nifty June closed down by 2.95 points at 1,059 and the July futures also closed lower by 3.05 points at 1,063.45. The volumes of both these futures were 5,918 and 181 contracts, respectively, while the open interest was 4,121 and 382 contracts, respectively.
Far month August futures managed to close at a premium to the cash market despite closing lower by 6.50 points at 1,064.50 amid a thin volume of 24 contracts and open interest of 34 contracts.
A total of 1,117.84 crore of contracts were traded on the National Stock Exchange in value terms and 43,484 contracts in terms of volume terms. In value terms Nifty futures recorded trading of Rs 129.85 crore, Rs 24.02 crore in Nifty Options, Rs 754.52 crore in stock futures and Rs 209.45 crore in stock options.
The top-traded futures continued to be Satyam, Nifty, Infosys and Digital GlobalSoft. Tata Engineering finished fourth on the volume honours list with transactions worth Rs 94 crore. Ther interest in BPCL has begun to fade after it announced an IPO, which would probably delay its privatisation. Neither BPCL, nor HPCL, were among the top five traded futures today.
Trading in the BSE Sensex futures continues to be dull. Only the near-month contracts attracted trades. However, the futures showed a divergent trend from the cash markets. While the cash index gained marginally the futures declined. Volumes and open interest inched up marginally.