What is F and O in Share Market?

What is F and O in Share Market?

Futures:
                A futures contract is a contract between two parties to buy or sell an asset for a price agreed upon today with delivery and payment occurring at a future point, the delivery date.

                This means you agree to buy or sell the underlying security at a 'future' date. If you buy the contract, you promise to pay the price at a specified time. If you sell it, you must transfer it to the buyer at a specified price in the future.

What is an options contract ?

                  This gives the buyer the right to buy/sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price, within, or at end of a specified period. He is, however, not obligated to do so. The seller of an option is obligated to settle it when the buyer exercises his right.

How can the contract be settled? 
                   The contract will expire on a pre-specified expiry date (for example, it is the last Thursday of the month for equity futures contracts). Upon expiry, the contract must be settled by delivering the underlying asset or cash. You can also roll over the contract to the next month. If you do not wish to hold it till expiry, you can close it mid-way.

Options:
                 An option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date. The seller has the corresponding obligation to fulfill the transaction – that is to sell or buy – if the buyer (owner) "exercises" the option. The buyer pays a premium to the seller for this right.

 Leverage: Options help you profit from changes in share prices without putting down the full                    price of the share. You get control over the shares without buying them outright.

  Hedging : They can also be used to protect yourself from fluctuations in the price of a share and            letting you buy or sell the shares at a pre-determined price for a specified period of time.

 Though they have their advantages

            In this trading in options is more complex than trading in regular shares. It calls for a good understanding of trading and investment practices as well as constant monitoring of market fluctuations to protect against losses.

‘CALL’ Option :

                    The ‘Call Option’ gives the holder of the option the right to buy a particular asset at the strike price on or before the expiration date in return for a premium paid upfront to the seller. Call options usually become more valuable as the value of the underlying asset increases. Call options are abbreviated as ‘C’ in online quotes.

Example:

v  Step1:Purchase 1 Lot of TCS May  3000 Call option, Spot price Rs.2900/Share

v  Step2:Pay premium of 25000 or Rs.250/Share          

v  Step3:If spot Price Exceeds Rs.3250,Exercise option

v  Step4:If spot price under Rs.3250 on Expiry, Let option Expire 

                    This means, under this contract, Karthick has the rights to buy one lot of 100 Infosys shares at Rs 3000 per share any time between now and the month of May. He paid a premium of Rs 250 per share. He thus pays a total amount of Rs 25,000 to enjoy this right to sell.

Now, suppose the share price of TCS rises over Rs 3,000 to Rs 3200, Karthick can consider exercising the option and buying at Rs 3,000 per share. He would be saving Rs 200 per share; this can be considered a tentative profit. However, he still makes a notional net loss of Rs 50 per share once you take the premium amount into consideration. For this reason, Karthick may choose to actually exercise the option once the share price crosses Rs 3,250 levels. Otherwise, he can choose to let the option expire without being exercised.

‘PUT’ Option :
             The Put Option gives the holder the right to sell a particular asset at the strike price anytime on or before the expiration date in return for a premium paid up front. Since you can sell a stock at any given point of time, if the spot price of a stock falls during the contract period, the holder is protected from this fall in price by the strike price that is pre-set. This explains why put options become more valuable when the price of the underlying stock falls.

Similarly, if the price of the stock rises during the contract period, the seller only loses the premium amount and does not suffer a loss of the entire price of the asset.

Month	Price	Premium
February (Current month)	Rs 1040 Spot	NA
May	Rs 1050 Put	Rs 10
May	Rs 1070 Put	Rs 30

Karthick buys 1000 shares of Company X Put at a strike price of 1070 and pays
Rs 30 per share as premium. His total premium paid is Rs 30,000.

If the spot price for Company X falls below the Put option Karthick bought, say to Rs 1020; Karthick can safeguard his money by choosing to sell the put option. He will make Rs 50 per share (Rs 1070 minus Rs 1020) on the trade, making a net profit of Rs 20,000 (Rs 50 x 1000 shares – Rs 30,000 paid as premium).

Alternately, if the spot price for Company X rises higher than the Put option, say Rs 1080; he would be at a loss if he decided to exercise the put option at Rs 1070. So, he will choose, in this case, to not exercise the put option. In the process, he only loses Rs 30,000 – the premium amount; this is much lower than if he had exercised his option.

SENSEX..How it is Calculated..?

SENSEX..How it is Calculated..?

For the premier Bombay Stock Exchange that pioneered the stock broking activity in India, 128 years of experience seems to be a proud milestone. A lot has changed since 1875 when 318 persons became members of what today is called The Stock Exchange, Mumbai by paying a princely amount of Re 1.

Since then, the country's capital markets have passed through both good and bad periods. The journey in the 20th century has not been an easy one. Till the decade of eighties, there was no scale to measure the ups and downs in the Indian stock market. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai in 1986 came out with a stock index that subsequently became the barometer of the Indian stock market.

Sensex is not only scientifically designed but also based on globally accepted construction and review methodology. First compiled in 1986, Sensex is a basket of 30 constituent stocks representing a sample of large, liquid and representative companies.

The base year of Sensex is 1978-79 and the base value is 100. The index is widely reported in both domestic and international markets through print as well as electronic media.

The Index was initially calculated based on the "Full Market Capitalization" methodology but was shifted to the free-float methodology with effect from September 1, 2003. 

Sensex Calculation Methodology
        Sensex is calculated using the "Free-float Market Capitalization" methodology. As per this methodology, the level of index at any point of time reflects the Free-float market value of 30 component stocks relative to a base period. The market capitalization of a company is determined by multiplying the price of its stock by the number of shares issued by the company. This market capitalization is further multiplied by the free-float factor to determine the free-float market capitalization.

The base period of Sensex is 1978-79 and the base value is 100 index points. This is often indicated by the notation 1978-79=100. The calculation of Sensex involves dividing the Free-float market capitalization of 30 companies in the Index by a number called the Index Divisor.

The Divisor is the only link to the original base period value of the Sensex. It keeps the Index comparable over time and is the adjustment point for all Index adjustments arising out of corporate actions, replacement of scrips etc. During market hours, prices of the index scrips, at which latest trades are executed, are used by the trading system to calculate Sensex every 15 seconds and disseminated in real time.

Understanding Free-float Methodology

Free-float Methodology refers to an index construction methodology that takes into consideration only the free-float market capitalisation of a company for the purpose of index calculation and assigning weight to stocks in Index. Free-float market capitalization is defined as that proportion of total shares issued by the company that are readily available for trading in the market.

It generally excludes promoters' holding, government holding, strategic holding and other locked-in shares that will not come to the market for trading in the normal course. In other words, the market capitalization of each company in a Free-float index is reduced to the extent of its readily available shares in the market.

In India, BSE pioneered the concept of Free-float by launching BSE TECk in July 2001 and Bankex in June 2003. While BSE TECk Index is a TMT benchmark, Bankex is positioned as a benchmark for the banking sector stocks. Sensex becomes the third index in India to be based on the globally accepted Free-float Methodology.

SENSEX Example:

Suppose the Index consists of only 2 stocks: Stock A and Stock B.

Suppose company A has 1,000 shares in total, of which 200 are held by the promoters, so that only 800 shares are available for trading to the general public. These 800 shares are the so-called 'free-floating' shares.

Similarly, company B has 2,000 shares in total, of which 1,000 are held by the promoters and the rest 1,000 are free-floating.

Now suppose the current market price of stock A is Rs 120. Thus, the 'total' market capitalisation of company A is Rs 120,000 (1,000 x 120), but its free-float market capitalisation is Rs 96,000 (800 x 120).

Similarly, suppose the current market price of stock B is Rs 200. The total market capitalisation of company B will thus be Rs 400,000 (2,000 x 200), but its free-float market cap is only Rs 200,000 (1,000 x 200).

So as of today the market capitalisation of the index (i.e. stocks A and B) is Rs 520,000 (Rs 120,000 + Rs 400,000); while the free-float market capitalisation of the index is Rs 296,000. (Rs 96,000 + Rs 200,000).

The year 1978-79 is considered the base year of the index with a value set to 100. What this means is that suppose at that time the market capitalisation of the stocks that comprised the index then was, say, 60,000 (remember at that time there may have been some other stocks in the index, not A and B, but that does not matter), then we assume that an index market cap of 60,000 is equal to an index-value of 100.

Thus the value of the index today is = 296,000 x 100/60,000 = 493.33

This is how the Sensex is calculated.

The factor 100/60000 is called index divisor.

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The 30 Sensex stocks are:

ACC, Ambuja Cements, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Bharti Airtel, Cipla, DLF, Grasim Industries, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hindalco Industries, Hindustan Lever, ICICI Bank, Infosys, ITC, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Udyog, NTPC, ONGC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Reliance Industries, Satyam Computer Services, State Bank of India, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, and Wipro.