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Volumes surge

DERIVATIVES REPORT

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Our Markets Bureau Mumbai
Volumes in the derivatives market were high at Rs 12597 crore on Friday. Stock futures saw a turnover of Rs 7680 crore from 2.3 lakh contracts. Index futures witnessed a turnover of Rs 3707 crore from 97,988 contracts.
 
Near-month Nifty futures closed at a discount of around three points to the spot Nifty, which went up by around 3 points. Among individual stock futures, the most active were those of Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Tata Motors. There was an increase of two lakh shares in the open interest position in the futures segment.
 
Banking stocks showed mixed sentiments with some losing open interest while others gained. ICICI Bank, for instance, saw a reduction in its open interest position by around 27 lakh shares, which is around 60 per cent of its total outstanding open interest.
 
Dealers said a lot of arbitrage activity had been taking place in the counter and the decrease in open interest could be attributed to the unwinding of these positions which had built-up during the bank's Rs 3500 crore public issue.
 
Andhra Bank and Canara Bank also saw their open interest positions going down though Punjab National Bank saw an increase in its open interest position by 12 per cent.
 
The optimism in public sector companies translated into a build-up of open interest positions in stocks of public sector units such as HPCL, Gas Authority, and Bharat Petroleum. Dealers said that these stocks still presented a lot of opportunities.
 
With the near month contracts set for expiry next week around 20 per cent of the futures position saw a roll-over to the May series.
 
The net buying by the foreign institutional investors in the derivatives segment stood at Rs 2.4 crore.

 
 

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First Published: Apr 24 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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