Relevance of Arbitrage in the Indian Derivatives Market

The Futures contract is an agreement between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a certain time in the future for certain agreed price. Since its introduction in the Indian market, futures are on the rise, attracting the three types of players i.e., hedgers, speculators & arbitrageurs. These players are able to book their profit only if there is any mis-match between spot-future relationship. The objective of this paper is to find out whether the spot-futures relationship holds in case of Index Futures in the Indian stock market which results in the arbitrage opportunity. This paper also aims at finding out different factors responsible for the violation of spot-futures relationship thereby determining the extent of arbitrage profits earned by the players in the Indian stock market.