Futures surge on late buying
LATE afternoon buying saw the futures market move from a discount to the cash market to close the day at a 26-point premium at 9,390.
Futures volume surged to 21,487 contracts worth $10.08 billion. There was a fair amount of roll-over activity with 7,240 November contracts traded.
News that an airport deal was in the wind hit the wires a few minutes before the morning session closed.
This obviously had an effect because the market shot up from the opening of the second session.
There were also signs of some bear squeezing and short covering with expiration on Thursday.
Jardine Fleming said trading sentiment was weak in the morning session but a flood of overseas buy orders in the afternoon reversed sentiment.
At the end of the day some retail short covering helped the market close at the high end of the trading range.
In the options market, 2,641 contracts were traded representing 12.3 per cent of futures volume.
Trading concentrated on November 9,200 straddles as well as December-March 9,400 call calendar spreads.
Major trades included 180 October 9,400 puts and 60 December 9,400 calls.
In over the counter options, volatilities were 30 per cent for September 1995 and 30.5 per cent for December 1995 options.
