FIRST TRADE: Equities fall for fifth consecutive day; Nifty holds on to 23,900 levels, Sensex down 208 pts

Indian equities tracking mixed Asian markets opened lower in Friday's session (December 20) for the fifth straight day. At the start, NSE was down 0.17 per cent ot 41.9 points at 23,909.8, while the Sensex fell 0.26 per centor 208 points to 79,010.12 points.

Sectorally, barring IT and media, all indices saw selling pressure, with the most cut seen in FMCG, metal and private banking stocks.

IT stocks were resilient today after the consulting major Accenture reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings with revenue beating Wall Street estimates.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, "

IT is likely to be strong in the near-term, buoyed by the positive Accenture results and guidance. Gen AI is becoming a profit pool for IT companies."

He added, the FII buying witnessed in early December is getting reversed now with this week’s selling reaching Rs 12,229 crores. This change in FII strategy is getting reflected in market trends,too, with largecaps, particularly financials, coming under pressure due to FII selling. This trend is unlikely to sustain and, therefore, retail investors can adopt a strategy opposite to the FII strategy. 
 

Technical outlook

Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities said, "The Nifty fell for the fourth straight day yesterday, but found support at the swing low from November 28, when the last derivatives expiry happened. This support, near 23870, is also the area where the 61.8 per cent Fibonacci retracement of the November to December advance meets a rising 200-day average."

Three-day momentum, measured by the RSI, is under 10, and every time it's gone into single digits, the prevailing downtrend has either stalled or triggered a tactical advance over the next few sessions, he added.

Asian markets

Most Asian stocks traded in the red as the likelihood of a slower rate cut in the US cautioned investors-weighing on their risk appetite. At the last count, the key MSCI Asia ex Japan index traded 0.6 per cent lower. Japanese markets together with Hong Kong's Hang Seng were an exception and rose up to 0.3 per cent.