March futures up

DERIVATIVES REPORT

Nifty futures settled at a discount of around four points to the underlying on Monday when compared with a premium of six-ten points in the previous trading day.

Nifty futures averaged almost 30 per cent of the total volumes in the derivatives segment. Nifty futures shed 4.5 lakh shares in open interest and most of the losses were recorded towards the close of the session.

March Nifty futures rose 43.20 points to settle at 1848 while the NSE S&P CNX Nifty rallied 52.40 points to end at 1,852.70.

There was hardly any build-up in open interest in frontline stocks. The cost of carry in futures has dropped to around five per cent making the arbitrage unfavourable. This could lead to a reduction of positions, which could impact the cash market.

Volumes were low at Rs 10,681 crore. The most active stock future contracts were Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog and State Bank of India.

Technology stocks gained on the back of a drop in open interest. Infosys Technologies lost 50,000 shares or six per cent in open interest. However, CNX-IT added some marginal open interest.

IPCL added 11 lakh shares in open interest. The counter had added 20 lakh shares during the day, but saw a drop in build-up at close. The floor price of the company's IPO is fixed at Rs170 per share.

Dr Reddy's, which shed 18 per cent after an adverse US court ruling, added 2.8 lakh shares or 150 per cent in open interest.