FIRST TRADE: Nifty, Sensex gain marginally mirroring global indices; ITC's AGM and Cipla Q1 in focus

Stock market today: Indian shares on Friday- July 26 began the session on a muted note taking cues from the Asian markets which posted mild recovery after the previous day's steep fall. This is even as the US stock markets in overnight trade continued to trend lower amid underwhelming earnings numbers from tech companies.

At the open, Nifty was up 0.2 per cent at 24,455.7, while the Sensex traded with gains of 0.15 per cent or 118.7 points at 80,158.5.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services remarked that "the unique feature of the ongoing bull market in India is its ability to climb all walls of worry. The market dismissed all concerns relating to elections, the Budget and the correction in the mother market US. The buy-on-dips strategy which has played out well in this rally continues to hold good."

However, the valuation discrepancy - largecaps fairly valued and mid and small caps highly valued - continues, sdded the expert. Long-term investors should exploit this discrepancy by buying quality largecaps on declines.

FPIs have again turned sellers and this might put further pressure on largecaps even though the FPI selling is being matched by DII buying. In the previous day, FII net sold equities worth Rs 2.,605.5 crore in the Indian market. 

The US Q2 GDP numbers coming better than expected at 2.8% further reinforces the soft landing hope for the US economy."

"Technically, Nifty's strength above 24,609 is key. Yesterday, FIIs were net sellers at ₹2,605 crores, while DIIs were net buyers at ₹2,432 crores. Nifty options data points to a 23,500-25,000 trading range, with major resistance at 24,800," noted Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities.