The Indian election magnum opus is now in its final stages and foreign investors have taken a directional view ahead of last phase on June 1. Exit polls will start filtering in soon after the poll booths close and June 4 is marked on the calendar as the big verdict day.
At the end of the May 2024 derivatives expiry, the value of outstanding positions, also called the Open Interest in the derivatives segment, has seen a sharp decline for the foreign institutional investors or FIIs in the Nifty Futures.
FII Unwinding Long Positions
The value of total Nifty 50 Futures Open Interest in the market declined Rs 6,630 crore at the end of May 30 — from Rs 39,310 crore a day earlier to Rs 32,680 crore. A large part of this was led by foreign investors where the open interest value fell by Rs 8,530 crore.
In the Nifty Options, foreign investors increased their positions by Rs 1.39 lakh crore in notional terms (Strike Price Multiplied by Open Interest) at the end of May 30 expiry. In terms of premium Open Interest value, it stands at Rs 6,405 crore marginally lower from 6484 crore a day earlier.
When it came to Nifty Futures Long positions, foreign investors reduced by 2.06 lakh contracts on May 30, while Nifty 50 short positions in futures rose by only 86,482 contracts.
It is also noteworthy that the total long-short ratio for the foreign investors has fallen below 1 to 0.98 from 1.28 a day earlier.