CNBC-TV18's Head-Markets Research, Anuj Singhal: he April series begins today and as expected we are beginning with around Rs 42,000 crores of Open Interest. That’s really light. March was a really painful series and a few things that stand out at the beginning of this series and how its different from March are

·          Stock futures Open Int of Rs 20,000 cr vs Rs 30,000 cr

·          Nifty futures Open Int of Rs 14,000 cr vs Rs 20,000 cr

·          Nifty futures premium of 35-points vs discount of 30-points

·          Nifty rollover of 63% vs 75%

It looks like some of the shorts haven’t rolled over to the new series and the bias towards rollover was on the long side. We are also beginning a new financial year and will be stepping into earnings season soon

One good thing that has happened over last few days is the resilience shown by the asian markets towards bad news from the US. In fact as I write, all Asian markets are in the green and there is no reason to believe that we won’t follow suit

As expected, Nifty held on to 4800 mark in Thursday’s trade and it was a really encouraging sign for the bulls. A lot of puts have already been written at 4800, though there has been some activity at the call side also. So that’s your equilibrium level and if Nifty can cross that convincingly, some players might be back in the market

Curiously, the next level of high activity in Puts is at 4500. And we all know how that has been the pinnacle of all support levels for the Nifty, even in the recent crash. So there is a sense that 4500 is a safe bottom. Of course all can change if earnings disappoint or if global cues turn worse

But at this point, the new series looks promising and hopefully it will restore some confidence back in the markets

DISCLAIMER: The author is not allowed to trade in equity markets including Futures and Options. His only exposure to capital markets is via shares of TV18 and Network18 granted to him as ESOPs by the company and investments in some long-term mutual funds.