Global investors bought a net 4.16 billion rupees ($80.2 million) of Indian equity derivatives yesterday, according to the National Stock Exchange.

Open interest, or the number of contracts outstanding in value terms, rose 1.8 percent to 761 billion rupees, or 30.6 percent of the gross market position, according to the exchange’s website. Open interest reached a record 1.6 trillion rupees on Sept. 21, 2010.

Foreign funds sold a net 1.02 billion rupees of shares in the cash segment yesterday, according to preliminary data given by the bourse.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paresh Jatakia in Mumbai at pareshj@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net