Nifty futures dealt at a premium of 5 points

DERIVATIVES REPORT

Nifty futures traded at a premium of around five points to the underlying spot market on Thursday. February Nifty fell 7.25 points to close at 1,889.95 while the NSE S&P CNX Nifty settled at 1,885.30.

Nifty futures added around 2.5 lakh shares in open interest. While the call implieds fell marginally to 24 per cent while put implieds were at 28 per cent. While the most active stocks were the Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti.

However, the turnover on NSE's derivative segment rose to Rs 13,025.39 crore from Rs 11,721 crore on Wednesday. While cumulative FII positions as percentage of total gross market position in the derivative segment as on Wednesday stood at 20.29 per cent.

The open interest in the February 2004 futures of Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) declined sharply by 3.48 lakh shares to 31.67 lakh shares, from 35.15 lakh shares. The M&M February futures ended at the same level as its spot price at Rs 461.55.

On the other hand, the open interest in Maruti rose sharply by 1.4 lakh shares on Thursday to 34.36 lakh shares from 32.96 lakh shares on Wednesday. The Maruti February 2004 futures ended at a slight premium to the spot at Rs 481.75, compared to its spot closing of Rs 480.30.

Infosys saw a huge build-up of positions in futures. The stock added around 1.2 lakh shares or 35 per cent in open interest. In the last three day, its open interest has gone up by over 50 per cent. Bank of Baroda added 3.8 lakh shares, Maruti added two lakh shares and Ranbaxy added 1.4 lakh shares in open interest.

On the other hand, ACC shed 3.3 lakh shares and Tata Power shed 3.7 lakh shares in open positions. Hero Honda, BPCL and HPCL also lost open interest.