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Informist, Monday, Mar. 24, 2025

By Alina Geogy

MUMBAI – Traders added bullish bets to the futures and options contracts of the Nifty 50 on Monday. The benchmark index rose sharply for the sixth straight session and hit a fresh one-month high of 23708.75 points. Market sentiment has been lifted over the past few sessions due to recent net buying by overseas investors, appreciation of the Indian currency against the dollar, and reports that US President Donald Trump may exclude some countries from his reciprocal tariffs.

The market sentiment is likely to remain positive in the short term, though investors may book some profit this week due to temporary overbought conditions, analysts said. Market participants have found respite in the fact that the selling momentum by foreign institutional investors has eased over the last few weeks. FIIs were net buyers in three out of five sessions last week. Friday, these investors net bought shares worth almost INR 75 billion. Market watchers also welcomed the rise in the rupee against the dollar. The Indian unit ended at a near three-month high of 85.6350 against the dollar on Monday.

The selling intensity from FIIs has reduced significantly and even the net flow has turned positive last week due to FTSE rebalancing, ICICI Direct Research said in a report. Moreover with the recent upmove, FIIs' net short positions have seen significant unwinding for the first time in last three months, the brokerage firm said. "Considering upcoming derivatives monthly settlement, we expect volatility to remain high where levels near 22800/23000 should act as immediate support for the index," it said.

Monday, the Nifty 50 crossed 23700 points for the first time since Feb. 6, before settling at 23658.35 points, up 1.3%. The highest addition of open interest in the call options of the Nifty 50 expiring Thursday was at the 24500-point strike, where premium surged over 170%. The 24500-point call option indicates an upside of 3.6% from the Nifty 50's closing level. Among put options expiring this week, the maximum change in open interest was at the 23500-point strike, which is 0.7% lower than the current level.

Premiums on the call option contract with the highest open interest concentration rose over 660%, while it fell 27% on put options. The March futures contract of the Nifty 50 closed at 23720 points, at a premium of 61.65 points to the spot index. Open interest in this contract rose 6% to 15.2 million, as per provisional data.

--Nifty 50 Mar closed at 23720.00, up 340.15 points

--Nifty 50 Apr closed at 23868.05, up 340.55 points; 209.07-point premium to spot index

--Nifty 50 May closed at 24002.50, up 351.30 points; 344.15-point premium to spot index

HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys, Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Aeronautics, Zomato, BSE, UltraTech Cement, Adani Enterprises, REC, DLF, Titan Co. Indus Towers, and Bharat Electronics were the most actively traded underlying stocks on the National Stock Exchange.  End

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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