Nifty Futures On The Ascend

The Nifty futures moved in line with the cash markets and ended higher. Nifty July ended 8.70 points higher at 1043.85 while S&P CNX Nifty ended 8.75 points at 1041.30.

Even August and September Nifty futures ended at a premium to the cash market with gains of 8.80 points and 4.90 points at 1049 and 1052, respectively.

However, the difference between the cash and the July futures which was higher during the earlier part of the day, declined towards the end of the trading session.

Volumes in all the three futures declined with July, August and September registering 3361, 448 and 16 contracts, respectively. Similarly open interest in all these three as 5330, 1435 and 90 contracts, respectively.

Open interest in the near month futures continues to decline while open interest in the August futures spurted 44 per cent ahead of the expiry next week. Nifty futures saw a trading volume of Rs 79.58 crore from 3825 contracts.

Among index options, Nifty registered a total trading of 8,962 contracts with a notional value of Rs 277.47 crore. The highest volume with 153 contracts was logged by the Nifty July call at 1040.

Other top traded calls were the Nifty July calls at 1060, 1050 and 1030. Among puts the highest volumes with 122 contracts was in the July put at 1040. Other puts traded were at strikes of 1030, 1060 and 1020. The put/call ratio in Nifty options rose to 0.79 from 0.60 previously.

Satyam continues to be the top traded stock future. However, the futures ended at par with the underlying. BPCL and HPCL made it to the top list after reports that the government will decide on their divestment in the next 7-10 days.

The BPCL futures ended at 310 against the spot close of 309 similarly the HPCL futures also ended at premium at 302.75 against the cash close of 301.50. Ranbaxy announced a 3:5 bonus today and also ended at a premium. The top ten contracts made up about 83 per cent of the total traded volume in futures.