Nifty futures on Chicago bourse from Monday

Come Monday, two futures contracts on the NSE nifty and denominated in US dollar will start trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). While one contract, E-mini Nifty Futures, will be valued at $10 times the current value of nifty index on the NSE, the other one, E-micro nifty futures, will be valued at $2 times the nifty index value at that time.

Investors globally will have the option to trade in nifty contracts for almost 23 hours on all trading days, an NSE release said. In addition, since nifty contracts are also traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and it has a mutual offset agreement with CME, investors can take a position on any of the two bourses and offset it at the other exchange, releases from CME and NSE said.

These two new contracts are intended to give global investors a more efficient means to gain exposure to India-related asset classes. They can also trade the contracts to hedge their risks from existing exposure to the Indian stock market, a release from NSE said.

Nifty gains strength on positive global cues

Key benchmark indices gained further strength on Thursday triggered by positive European markets. After a lackluster opening, major European indices bounced back later in the day and helped the local equity markets to ascend newer highs during the last hours of trade. On the other hand, Asian markets settled on a mixed note with meager movement on either side of their respective neutral lines. Back home, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas segments witnessed maximum traction led by L&T and RIL respectively. Moreover, barring Consumer Durables, all other segments settled in the green.

Nifty calls of 5,300 strike price for the current month expiry were most active, reflecting the likely level of resistance in the near-term. On the other hand, 5,200 Nifty Puts for the June month contract witnessed huge build-up over 20% and the broadly-followed index could get vital support around this level.

The India VIX was down by 8.03% to 20.85 on Thursday compared to its previous close of 22.67 on Wednesday. Finally, the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty settled at 5,274.85, up by 41.50 points or 0.79%.

Nifty June futures saw an addition of 4.63% or 1.40 million (mn) units, taking the total outstanding open interest (OI) to 31.74 mn units.

For Nifty calls, 5300 strike price (SP) from the June series was the most active call with an addition of 0.17 mn units or 2.54%.

Among Nifty puts, 5200 SP from the June month expiry was the most active Put with an addition of 1.49 mn units or 21.47%.

The maximum Call OI outstanding was at 5300 SP (7.17 mn) and that for Puts at 5200 SP (8.44 mn).

The respective Support and Resistance levels are:

Resistance 5304.75  Pivot Point 5255.65  Support 5225.75

The Nifty Put Call Ratio (PCR) OI wise stood at 1.96 for current month contract.

The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were HDFC Bank 5.83, Sterlite Industries 2.62, Hero Honda 1.93, Areva T&D 1.90 and SBI 1.73.

Among most active underlyings, ICICI Bank witnessed an addition of 16.18% in the June month futures contract, followed by RIL which also witnessed an addition of 0.67% of OI in the near month contract. RComm saw a contraction of 1.97% in the current month contract. Sesagoa saw new positions being added to the tune of 4.33% in the June month futures OI. Tata Steel witnessed an addition of 3.63% for the June month contract.