Rollover for the Nifty August derivative series at 70.9% was in line with that of the last month. The healthy rollovers was accompanied by a huge jump in the premium for the September futures (25 points) against spot Nifty at the fag end of the trading session on Thursday. According to derivative experts, it indicated that a significant number of long positions were rolled over.
According to Savio Shetty, Derivatives strategist at Prabhudas Lilladher, the jump in the cost of rollover or the premium for September futures over that of spot Nifty towards the end of the trading session may not be looked upon as the usual sign of bullish sentiments.
?The cost of rollover at certain stage went as high as R40 during the end of the session before settling at R25. However, this also indicates that the long positions had to be rolled over at a higher price in absence of good amount of short rollovers that could balance the trade ,? he added.
As a result analysts are not expecting the market to change its weak stance in the near future. ?The market sentiment still remain bearish with most of the traders looking at 5,000-4,800 as a decisive range? said Amit Gupta, Derivatives head as ICICI Direct. Akin to the August series, 4800 puts and 5,000 calls of the September series, also experienced a heavy built up of open interest.
?The roll-over in index heavyweights and index futures appear to be healthy, in line with last month?s roll-overs. However, certain non-index big mid-cap stocks also experienced cash-based selling as positions were not rolled over on these counters,? said Gupta.
Punj Lloyd, Crompton Greaves, Suzlon energy are some of the stocks which clocked cash market based selling, following a lower long roll-overs. Amongst Nifty stocks, prices of Infosys and SAIL also plunged during the last half an hour of trading as long positions failed to get rolled over.
Index heavyweights which experienced short rollovers included RIL, SBI and Tata Motors while Cairn India, NTPC, and Bajaj Auto underwent long rollovers.