The Indian stock market saw divergence in its benchmark indices on Thursday as Sensex closed in the red on its weekly expiry day following sharp volatility during the closing auction session, while Nifty ended the day in the green.
During the closing auction session (CAS), Sensex’s indicative price spiked around 180 points in 10 minutes to 74,588, erasing all gains and slipping into the red. Sensex dropped over 273 points from its CAS high to close at 74,315, overall recording 22 point loss for the day. Nifty 50 meanwhile overall gained 53 points to end the session near 23,271.
HDFC Bank, Titan and ICICI Bank shares dropped more than 1% each to lead losses on Sensex, while SBI and Bharti Airtel shares fell over half a percent each. Meanwhile Tata Steel, BEL, IndiGo and Eternal shares gained 2-3%.
Broader markets took a sigh of relief after a sharp selloff, with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices closing up to 1% higher. Among the indices, Nifty Pharma rallied around 2%, while Nifty Realty, Nifty Auto and several others indices gained around 1% each. The overall market breadth turned positive, with NSE seeing 2,262 advances against 1,279 declines, while 110 stocks remained unchanged.
What lies ahead for Dalal Street?
The anticipated Fed rate hike, along with easing bond yields, offered temporary support to global equities and reinforced expectations of gradually moderating inflation, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Investments. Despite this, domestic markets remained volatile but ended higher, supported by value buying following the recent correction, he added.
“Investor sentiment is likely to stay cautious amid concerns over a possible broader rate-tightening cycle, driven by ongoing Middle East tensions and the risk of U.S. tariff. Mid- and small-cap stocks continued to outperform as investors favored companies with strong earnings visibility, solid order books, and healthy balance sheets, particularly in the capital goods, industrial, defence, power, and healthcare sectors,” according to the analyst.
Technical view on Nifty
The Nifty has risen further as the index is showing signs of recovery after finding support around the previous swing low on the daily chart, said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities. He noted that the RSI is also seen coming out of the oversold zone, indicating an improvement in momentum.
“Resistance is placed at 23,300; sustained trading above this level might induce a rally towards 23,500. On the lower end, support is placed at 23,200, below which the trend might weaken,” the analyst said.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
