S&P CNX -- Nifty -- ended the Monday’s session in red zone amid rising covid cases. Market made a negative opening, as Maharashtra government has decided to impose complete lockdown on weekends and a night curfew in the state to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. The curbs will come into effect from Monday night. India reported 103,793 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike of the year, pushing the overall tally to 12,587,920, according to Worldometer. Further, market continued its free fall, as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed that the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.986 billion to reach $579.285 billion in the week ended March 26. In the previous week ended March 19, the forex kitty had increased by $233 million to $582.271 billion. It had touched a record high of $590.185 billion in the week ended January 29, 2021. The fall in reserves was on account of a decrease in foreign currency assets (FCA), a major component of the overall reserves.
Index remained in red zone till the end of the session, after India's manufacturing sector activities lost further growth momentum and fell to a seven-month low in March as demand was constrained by the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell from 57.5 in February to a seven-month low of 55.4 in March. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion while a score below 50 denotes contraction. Finally, market closed the session with the cut of above one and half a percent.
Most of the sectoral indices ended in red except IT and Metal. The top gainers from the F&O segment were SAIL, Dr. Lal PathLabs and LTI. On the other hand, the top losers were Apollo Tyres, Canara Bank and United Breweries. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 14700 - 16700 calls and 13,900 - 14,600 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.
India Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility increased by 6.14% and reached 21.22. The 50 share Nifty down by 229.55 points or 1.54% to settle at 14,637.80.
Nifty April 2021 futures closed at 14706.60 (LTP) on Monday, at a premium of 68.80 points over spot closing of 14637.80, while Nifty May 2021 futures ended at 14755.00 (LTP), at a premium of 117.20 points over spot closing. Nifty April futures saw an addition of 6,608 units, taking the total open interest (Contracts) to 1,49,631 units. The near month derivatives contract will expire on April 29, 2021(Provisional).
From the most active contracts, Reliance Industries April 2021 futures traded at a premium of 7.25 points at 1999.25 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1992.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 36,527 (Provisional).
SBIN April 2021 futures traded at a premium of 1.10 points at 355.10 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 354.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 25,130 (Provisional).
ICICI Bank April 2021 futures traded at a premium of 3.05 points at 575.05 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 572.00. The numbers of contracts traded were 25,044 (Provisional).
Tata Steel April 2021 futures traded at a premium of 5.70 points at 873.00 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 867.30. The numbers of contracts traded were 24,519 (Provisional).
HDFC Bank April 2021 futures traded at a premium of 4.80 points at 1455.00 (LTP) compared with spot closing of 1450.20. The numbers of contracts traded were 22,625 (Provisional).
Among, Nifty calls, 15000 SP from the April month expiry was the most active call with a contraction of 2,644 units open interests. Among Nifty puts, 14000 SP from the April month expiry was the most active put with an addition of 105 units open interests. The maximum OI outstanding for Calls was at 15000 SP (29,865 units) and that for Puts was at 14000 SP (52,636 units). The respective Support and Resistance levels of Nifty are: Resistance 14,838.60 -- Pivot Point 14,649.05 -- Support -- 14,448.25.
The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) finally stood at (1.60) for April month contract. The top five scrips with highest PCR on BOSCH (1.59), PVR (1.44), Amara Raja Batteries (1.44), Torrent Power (1.14) and Siemens (1.11).
Among most active underlying, Tata Steel witnessed a contraction of 618 units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract followed SBIN witnessed an addition of 1,335 units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract, Tata Motors witnessed an addition of 114 units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract, Adani Enterprises witnessed an addition of 620 units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract and Bajaj Finance witnessed an addition of 1,917 units of Open Interest in the April month futures contract (Provisional).