More Stories

Informist, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025

By Anshul Choudhary

MUMBAI – Options data suggest the Nifty 50 is likely to move in a range till this week's expiry on caution ahead of the December quarter earnings. The earnings season is set to begin with the results of Tata Consultancy Services on Thursday.

Monday's fall, when the Nifty 50 lost 1.6%, has hit sentiment in the market as analysts had hoped for a bounce-back at the start of the week. The sentiment is still negative as the Nifty 50 failed to fully recover from the fall and gained only 0.4% Tuesday to close at 23707.90 points.

For options expiring this week, the highest open interest was added at 23200 puts, indicating expectations of a further fall in the Nifty 50. The highest open interest on the put side was also at 23000-23200 strike prices. Analysts expect the Nifty 50 to find support at 23500 points, but they said a fall to 23200 points is a possibility if the earnings season is disappointing.

"The derivatives market displayed a cautious tone, with call writers dominating over put writers, signalling hesitancy among participants. At the 24,000-strike call, open interest surged to 1.26 crore (12.6 million) contracts, reinforcing it as a formidable resistance level," Dhupesh Dhameja, derivatives analyst at SAMCO Securities, said in a note.

On the call side, the highest open interest addition was seen at 23800-24000 strike prices and these levels are likely to act as immediate resistance. Traders sold out-of-the-money call options, but also bought call options below 23500 points, indicating expectations of limited losses in the Nifty 50.

The January futures contract of the Nifty 50 closed at a premium of 77.55 points to the spot index. Open interest in the contract rose 2.9% to 12.80 million, according to provisional data.

--Nifty 50 Jan closed at 23785.45, up 64.40 points

--Nifty 50 Feb closed at 23932.00, up 74.65 points; 224.10-point premium to spot index

--Nifty 50 Mar closed at 24084.95, up 70.35 points; 377.05-point premium to spot index

Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Oil and Natural Gas Corp., ICICI Bank, Infosys, Zomato, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Biocon, State Bank of India, Kalyan Jewellers, and Bajaj Finance were the most actively traded underlying stocks.  End

Edited by Rajeev Pai

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.