Mumbai: Public sector undertaking financial institution Ireda symbolised wild Wednesday, which saw the market swing widely as bulls and bears slugged it out. The stock opened at the lower circuit and recovered to close at the upper circuit as the market rose from being in the red to close well in the green. The biggest casualty of the 340.65-point swing between the day’s high and low was the call seller who was taken to the cleaners.
The Indian Renewable Ene-rgy Development Agency Ltd (Ireda) stock opened at ₹154.05, 5% lower than its previous close of ₹162.15, but rec-overed in the last half hour of trade to close up 5% at ₹170.25. The rise from the lower circuit happened as bulls turned the tables on bears in the last hour of trade. The Nifty, which opened down three-quarters of a per cent at 21,578.15, fell to a low of ₹21,530.2, and remained in the red until 2:30 pm—market runs from 9:15 am-3:30 pm—recovered and closed higher by two-fifths of a per cent at 21,840.05.
The markets were propped up by domestic institutional investors (DII) and proprietary buying in the last hour of trade, which offset the FPI selling. While FPIs sold a provisional ₹3,929.6 crore worth of shares, DIIs purchased ₹2,897.98 crore. While figures for BSE showed prop buying of ₹305.84 crore and retail selling of ₹813.46 crore, the similar figures for NSE were not available. But, analysts said that they would have purcha-sed to enable the indices close in the green.
“The bears strove hard to keep the market below the 21,500 mark, but couldn’t withstand the counteroffensive from the bulls which enabled the Nifty to close 310 points higher by closing,” said Kruti Shah, quant analyst at Equirus. “The market is likely to veer in a range of 21,500- 22,126.80 (the record high).”
“A fall below the 40-day exponential moving average of 21,489 would have accelerated the selling, but that wasn’t to be,” said Rohit Srivastava, fou-nder of IndiaCharts.
So far this calendar year, FPIs have sold shares worth ₹31,963.6 crore, including Wednesday’s provisional figure, while DIIs have purchased ₹40,288.67 crore.
The stellar recovery by the market caused deep losses to call option sellers who had sold Nifty calls at 21,800 level.
The price of that option rose from a low of ₹15.15 a share (50 shares make one contract) to close at ₹124 a share, an intraday jump of 718%. Call option sellers who are bears were forced to close out their positions by buying the option back which accelerated the price rise in the last hour of trade, said Chandan Taparia, senior vice president (derivatives research), Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
The volatility caused equity futures and options turnover to hit a record daily high of ₹749.29 trillion. Notional F&O turnover so far this fiscal is up 79% to ₹68,305 trillion from FY23.