All three Nifty futures in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) derivatives market ended lower today.
The September Nifty futures settled at 999.00, while the underlying cash market index, the S&P CNX Nifty settled at 1008.60.
A dealers at a derivative desk said, "Investors do not seem confident of short-term buoyancy as all the three futures settled at a discount to the underlying shares. They can't seem to find a trigger."
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Volumes in September and October futures were lower compared with Wednesday's levels. Open interest also inched up marginally. Nifty futures generated a trading volume of Rs 165.18 crore from 8,244 contracts.
Meanwhile, 1,212 contracts were traded in Nifty options at a notional value of Rs 24.63 crore. The total turnover of the futures & options segment was around Rs 1,691.31 crore.
In Nifty options the highest volumes with 195 contracts traded was in the Nifty September call at 1000. In stock options, 14,185 contracts were traded at a notional value of Rs 413.31 crore.
While Satyam was the most active option contract among individual securities traded today with 6,549 contracts, Infosys Technologies was second with 1,451 contracts being traded.
The top five strikes belonged to Satyam. Reliance and HPCL were the other counters among the top ten strikes.
In stock futures, Satyam Computer and Infosys were the top traded. Both these stocks ended at a discount to their underlying. While BPCL and HPCL ended at a slight premium signifying that investors are optimistic about the outcome of the divestment committees meeting on Saturday.