Short positions in banks, realty and technology

F&O OUTLOOK

The markets ended in the negative on the last day of FY2007-08. The Sensex and Nifty declined by over four per cent each due to weak global markets, rising inflation and concerns over economic growth.

The unhedged positions exacerbated the decline. The Nifty April futures closed at a discount of 19 points as against a premium of 29 points on Friday, indicating the creation of fresh short positions.

The Nifty put call ratio declined to 1.20 from 1.39 on Friday as operators preferred to write more Call options than Put options.

More than 50 per cent of the Call options OI is seen at 4800, 4,900 and 5,000 strike prices, indicating stiff resistance at the afore-mentioned levels. The Put options OI build-up at 4,500 and 4,800 strikes demonstrates the support range for Nifty in case the markets weakened further.

Friday's session had seen long built-up in most of the stocks. But Monday's session saw unwinding of long positions and the initiation of short positions in banks, realty and technology stocks.

Infosys Technologies (down 5.69 per cent) and TCS (weak by 7.45 per cent) witnessed the creation of short derivatives positions on concerns that the Reserve Bank of India may allow rupee appreciation to contain inflation.

Short positions were seen in ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, while long positions were unwound in State Bank of India.

The futures of ICICI Bank declined eight per cent, whereas the OI rose three per cent, HDFC Bank down six per cent and OI up six per cent, State Bank down six per cent and OI down six per cent.