Closing Bell: Market snaps 4-day losing streak; Nifty, Sensex up over 0.5% — Autos, Consumer Durables drive rally

After four back-to-back consecutive negative closings, the Indian market ended on a strong note on Friday amid improved sentiments.

Volatility has re-emerged and investors have turned their focus on upcoming Fed policy in the backdrop of heightened US inflation, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

"Fall in crude prices and reduction in FII selling added optimism to the domestic market while gloomy IT results, depreciating rupee and fear of global recession are restricting sizeable up move. In addition to the Fed policy, the domestic market's near-term momentum will be influenced by ongoing quarterly earnings," added Nair.

Benchmarks gained more than half per cent as Nifty50 ended above 16,000-mark, while the Sensex gained around 350 points to settle near 53,800.  

"The index remained sideward as it had been a lackluster session on the last day of the week. However, the index was able to reclaim the 16000 mark at the end," said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities. 

He said momentum indicator has ended with a bullish crossover. "Over the short term, the index may move towards 16170-16200. On the lower end, support is visible at 15900-15850," the expert added. 

Meanwhile, the week which witnessed the market closing in the green on the first time saw the barometer indices closing with one per cent cut each for the week ended on July 15.  

The Nifty, in the week gone by, stumbled near multiple technical parameters, which were near 16200, said Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head of Technical Research, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.

"The index is hovering near the level of 16000 for the last few sessions. On the weekly chart, it has formed an Inside bar, which shows loss of momentum. The hourly chart shows that the index has moved down from the upper end of a rising channel towards the lower end," said the expert.

He said the near term support zone for the index is 15850-15900. Once that is breached then the index can slide down towards 15500. From trading perspective, sell on rise will be the strategy for short term traders with reversal above the swing high of 16275, added Ratnaparkhi.

Besides, Nifty Midcap and Smallcap rose 0.7% and 0.3% respectively as India VIX (Volatility index) slipped below 18-mark with around 4% change on Friday.   

Sectorally, Nifty Auto, FMCG and Consumer Durables gained the most, while Metal and PSU Bank took the maximum beatings in an otherwise positive market.  

The Bank Nifty index witnessed some buying from the previous gap zone, however the trend remains sideways, said Kunal Shah, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities. The index downside support stands at 34,400 and resistance stands at 35,300, he said. "The index needs to break the range on either side for getting a clear trend. The index if it breaks the support of 34,400 will lead to further selling pressure towards 34000 where the highest open interest is built up on the put side," the expert added.

Tata Consumer, Titan, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti, L&T, HDFC Limited, Mahindra & Mahindra, Nestle India and Bharti Airtel drove the rally on Friday.  

Tata Steel, Power Grid, HCL Tech, Wipro, JSW Steel, Dr Reddy's and Axis Bank were among top laggards.