Dalal Street Corner: IT, energy stocks, record GST collection help market snap 2-day losing streak; what should investors do on Friday?

After two consecutive negative closings, IT and energy stocks helped the market end higher on Thursday. Nifty oil & gas settled with 2.2% gains as Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) led the Nifty50 and Sensex packs with over 3.5% gains. Among IT stocks, TCS and HCL Tech too featured in top five gainers on the blue-chip Nifty index.  

Besides, the rally in midcap and small cap stocks and record GST collection on Wednesday cheered up the market. Nifty midcap and small cap indices ended higher by 0.6% on Thursday. At 1.41 lakh crore, GST revenue for May saw an increase of 44 per cent on year-on-year basis. “This is only the fourth time the monthly GST collection crossed Rs 1.40 lakh crore mark since the inception of GST and the third month at a stretch since March 2022,” the Finance Ministry had said. 

As the market ended in the green, the broader Nifty50 closed above 16, 600 and the Sensex added more than 400 points to settle near 55,800.  

Meanwhile, Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in the capital market on Wednesday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,930.16 crore, showed stock exchange data.  

Here is what experts make of Thursday's session 

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services. 

The bounce in the market is showing signs of getting extended further, supported by a mid and small-cap. High-frequency data like GST collection and PMI have shown a good start to FY23. Crude prices have declined providing an edge to the performance of the Indian market. However, a lot will depend on central bank’s policy in India & US, which will be announced in the next two weeks. 

Ajit Mishra, vice president, research at Religare Broking 

We are seeing a kind of breather, and there is some selective buying. Globally, inflation concerns remain and until there are significant developments, we will continue seeing muted movement in domestic markets. 

Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities 

Nifty remained volatile with a positive bias throughout the session. On the daily chart, the benchmark index Nifty has formed an engulfing kind of pattern, suggesting bullishness. Daily RSI is in bullish crossover and rising. On the higher end, the index has resistance at 16700; above 16700, the Nifty can move towards 17000. The trend is likely to remain positive as long as it sustains above 16400" 

Chandan Taparia, Vice President, Equity Derivatives and Technical, Motilal Oswal  

Nifty is expected to remain in a range, while Bank Nifty may outperform. Traders are advised to apply a buy on decline strategy at the support zones. At the current juncture, we are advising to be with selective stocks and one can look for buying opportunity in stocks like Reliance, Bajaj Finance, Voltas and HAL.