First Trade: Sensex down 129 points, Nifty trades at 24,162; DMart hits 10% upper circuit

Indian equities in Friday's session opened lower despite mostly positive Asian markets. At the opening, Sensex was down 0.16 per cent or 129.24 points at 79,814.47, while the Nifty50 index started trade with a cut of 0.11 per cent or 26.95 points at 24,161.7.

Broader markets, however, outperformed the frontline indices with the Nifty Smallcap 100 index up nearly 0.6 per cent at the last count.

Sectorally, in a mixed session, PSU Bank and oil & gas stock led with PSU Bank index up over 1 per cent, while IT, pharma and private bank led the losses with the IT pack leading the losses today.

Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, "The uncanny ability of the market to surprise was evident in yesterday’s massive 445 point rally in Nifty. Even though FII buying helped in the rally, at Rs 1506 crores net buying it was not good enough to trigger such a massive 1.8 per cent rally in Nifty."

Short covering in certain beaten down fundamentally strong stocks like the Bajaj Twins and sharp spurts in auto stocks assisted by better-than-expected December sales numbers have contributed to the rally, he added.

Technical outlook

Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities said, "Nifty had its best day since November 22 and also managed a close above the Nov 19 gap-down level of 24150 in a shot-in-the-arm for tactical bulls. For the second successive time, the mid-December break of the 200-day average turned out to be a bear trap. That said, follow through here is key, with an immediate hurdle at 24250 and critical resistance at 24306."

Supports lie at 24000 with an extension at 23830. Seasonally speaking, based on the last one year of data, Friday has been the best day of the week for the nifty - the index has gained 0.2% on average with a 60% win-rate over this period, he added.

Asian markets

Most Asian stocks were trading higher in early Asian trade led by sharp gains in South Korean shares. At the last count, South Korea's KOSPI traded with gains of nearly 2 per cent. The key MSCI Asia ex Japan index traded with gains of 0.67 per cent.

Stock markets in Japan are closed and will remain shut through January 6, resulting in softer trading volumes.