Nifty index puts drop versus calls ahead of March quarter results
Indian options traders wrote more calls than puts on the benchmark CNX Nifty index for the first time in 11 days
Mumbai: Indian options traders wrote more calls than puts on the benchmark CNX Nifty index for the first time in 11 days, before the quarterly earnings season begins Thursday.
The number of put options per call fell to 1.14 at 2.45pm in Mumbai, after reaching a 10-week high of 1.18 on Monday. The CNX Nifty index was little changed at 8,831.55. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed less than 0.1%. Nifty 9,000 calls and the 8,700 puts were the most popular contracts by open interest. The India VIX Index, a measure of protection against stock market swings using options, fell 0.8% to 14.37.
“Call premiums are rising as the Nifty may rally" toward the 9,000-point level before fourth-quarter results, Chandan Taparia, a derivatives analyst at Anand Rathi Financial Services Ltd, said in a phone interview. “Traders are betting on individual stocks before results."
Indian companies will report results for the January-March quarter from this month, with Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), the nation’s largest software company, and IndusInd Bank Ltd, due to report on Thursday. Earnings for the Sensex’s 30 companies decreased in the three months ended December for the first time in six quarters, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Global investors bought a net $73 million of local shares on 10 April, taking this year’s inflows to $6.3 billion, the most in Asia. They bought $16 billion of stocks last year. Bloomberg
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