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C. Raja Rajeshwari

THERE was a flurry of activity in the F&O segment this week, with the benchmark indices gaining for four consecutive days. The notional turnover for the whole segment was higher this week at Rs 2,532 crore as compared with last week's turnover. The most active segment was the stock futures, which saw an average weekly turnover of Rs 1,499 crore.

Index futures: The Nifty Spot closed the week at 1016.95. Though the markets witnessed buying interest, the futures are trading at a discount to the spot. The April future contract was trading at a discount of Rs 2.15 at Rs 1,014.80. It closed with an open interest of 23.5 lakh contracts, a substantial increase from the open interest of last week. The cost-of-carry ended lower thus indicating the uncertainty in the index, which may remain range-bound for the forthcoming week. The May future contract closed at Rs 1,015.65, a discount of Rs 1.30 to spot and the June contract was at Rs 1014.55, a discount of Rs 2.40.

Stock futures: Reliance, Mastek, Wipro, Tata Engg, and Digital GlobalSoft were the most actively traded contracts.

* HPCL April futures (quoting at a premium) ended the week at Rs 302.85 with increase in open interest to 1.75 lakh contracts. In the cash market, the stock gained value during the week.

* BHEL April futures ended the week at Rs 231, quoting at a discount to the spot. The open interest jumped to 16 lakh contracts as compared with eight lakh contracts last week.

* SBI April futures closed at a premium to the spot at Rs 284.60, with an open interest 1.16 lakh contracts. The spot was range-bound, declining in a week where all the banking stocks were in the limelight for value appreciations.

Index options: This week there was more action in the call than in the puts. The most active calls were 1010 April and 1000 April (Both in-the-money).

* The 980 April Call (ITM) closed at Rs 38.10, with an open interest of 50,400 contracts.

* The 1040 April Call (OTM) quoted at 4.60, gaining value with the spot climbing this week. It closed with an open interest of 1.38 lakh contracts.

* The Put-call ratio was 0.56 clearly indicating a range-bound market with no clear sentiments about the index movements for the forthcoming week..

* Among the May Calls, there was trading interest in 1010 strike and the 1050 strike.

The most active puts this week were 1000 April, 990 April and 1010 April put.

* The 1030 April Put (ITM) quoted at 22.55. The price of the put has been declining with the Nifty spot appreciating this week. The open interest stood at 23,200 contracts.

* The 990 April Put (OTM) quoted at Rs 4.60 with an open interest of 1.19 lakh contracts.

* The 990 May Put was actively traded among May contracts.

Stock Options: SBI, Tata Steel and Reliance stock options attracted huge trading activity.

* Tata Steel spot closed higher this week at Rs 140.65. The 140 April Call and 145 April Call were the top traded options for the week. The calls gained value significantly while the 140 April Put and 135 April Put lost ground

* The put-call ratio for the Tata Steel stood at 0.48 indicating a range-bound market in the forthcoming week.

* Among the May contracts for Tata Steel, the 140 calls were actively traded with open interest of 10800 contracts.

* The put-call ratio for Tata Power, Tata Tea, HLL, HDFC and ACC were low indicating positive sentiments about these stocks. However, the ratio was considerably higher for stocks such as BHEL, HCL Technologies, MTNL and Tata Engg indicating weakness in the stocks for the ensuing week.

If you have any queries relating to the futures/options markets and strategies that can be used in these markets, please mail them to Futures & Options, Kasturi & sons, 859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002 or email them to vaidy@thehindu.co.in with a mention of futures/options in the subject line of the mail.

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