Dalal Street Corner: Sensex, Nifty end marginally higher amid choppy trade; what should investors do on Friday?

In a choppy trade today, the Indian markets snapped a four-day decline to end with minor gains on Thursday. The Sensex closed over 113 points, while the Nifty50 concluded near the 17,250-mark, mostly led by massive buying in the IT stocks. The market breadth turns favour of declines, the advanced-decline ratio at 1:2. 

On the contrary, the broader markets underperformed as compared to benchmarks, to conclude negative as both mid and small-cap slumped 0.6 and 0.7 per cent, respectively. The Nifty Bank, a key contributor to the Nifty50, slumped almost 250 points to end above the 36500-mark on Thursday.  

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Of 50 scrips on the Nifty50, 26 advanced, and 24 declined at the close. Bajaj Finance surged around 3 per cent to end as top gainer after a four-day fall. While index heavyweights such as Hindalco, Cipla, Maruti, ICICI Bank, Hero Moto, Sun Pharma each dipped between 1-2 per cent at the close. 

In the broader markets, Torrent Pharma closed in the red. Similarly, Gujarat Fluoro ended 8 per cent lower after the company reports a fire at the Halol unit. And, 17 crore Vedanta shares trade on bourses, stock ends near the high point. 

In the IPO segment, Supriya Lifescience's initial share sale opened on Thursday and the issue was booked fully within hours of subscription. While its second day for HP Adhesives IPO witness over 5 times subscription so far and Data Patterns subscribed over 10 times on the last day of offer. 

Rategain Travel and Technologies is all set to make a market debut during Friday’s session, wherein the majority of the analysts expect the company to see minor listing gains tomorrow. 

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said, “Domestic weakness was due to FII selling and moderation in retail activity. The Fed chair announced their decision to double the pace of asset tapering by early 2022 rather than a mid-2022 paving way for three interest rate hikes, backed by a rapidly strengthening economy and employment gains amid inflation concerns.” 

“Technically, the Nifty index has shifted below the Middle Bollinger Band formation and 50 days SMA, which indicates bearish sentiments, said Sachin Gupta, AVP-Research, Choice Broking. 

He added, “On an hourly chart, the index is also trading with Lower Highs & Lower Lows formation, which points out the weakness in the counter. However, the nifty is having good support at around 17200 levels as we are witnessing buying strength from those levels.” 

“At present, the Index has support at 17200 levels while resistance comes at 17400 levels. On the other hand, Bank nifty has support at 36300 levels while resistance at 37000 levels,” Gupta also said. 

According to Rohit Singre, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities, “Index again respected the support zone of 17200 and witnessed some pull back. The 17200-level again will be the first support for Nifty followed by 17140 zone, if managed to sustain above said levels then some extension can be possible towards 17370-17450 zone which are immediate resistance on the higher side.”