Ahead of Market: 10 things that will decide D-St action on Thursday

Amidst fragile global sentiments, the Nifty consolidated for the second consecutive day and ended with a marginal gain of 27 points. Sectorally, it was a mixed bag with private banks, realty and media gaining more than 1.5 per cent while IT, pharma, auto and oil and gas were marginal losers.

Here's how analysts read the market pulse:

Sahaj Agrawal, Head of Research - Derivatives at Kotak Securities, said the medium-term outlook remains positive. “In the short term, expect volatility to remain high on account of global markets. IT and select energy stocks look attractive at current levels while metals and cement continue to consolidate,” he said.

Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities, said the immediate resistance is to be watched at 17,650, while a sustainable move above this area is expected to pull Nifty towards another hurdle of 17,850 levels in the short term.

That said, here’s a look at what some key indicators are suggesting for Thursday’s action:

Wall Street stays in its holding pattern
US stocks are stuck in their holding pattern Wednesday, as Wall Street waits for a highly anticipated speech about interest rates scheduled for the end of the week.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24 points, or 0.1%, at 32,884, as of 9:54 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

It’s setting up to be a second straight day of modest moves for the market, but they follow some severe swings up and down over the prior weeks.

European markets close slightly higher
European markets closed slightly higher on Wednesday as investors fretted over an energy crisis and gloomy growth outlook, while hawkish comments on US Federal Reserve monetary policy further dented sentiment. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index provisionally ended up 0.2%.

Tech View: Small bullish candle
Nifty50 formed a small bullish candle on the daily chart. Analysts said the 50-pack index might trade range bound with a positive bias as long as it trades above the 17,350 level. A fall below this level may attract selling pressure, they said.

Stocks showing bullish bias
Momentum indicator Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) showed a bullish trade setup on the counters of Greaves Cotton, Allcargo Logistics, Asahi Ind Glass, Tasty Bite Eatable, Jyothy Labs and IDFC First Bank.

The MACD is known for signaling trend reversals in traded securities or indices. When the MACD crosses above the signal line, it gives a bullish signal, indicating that the price of the security may see an upward movement and vice versa.

Stocks signalling weakness ahead
The MACD showed bearish signs on the counters of Tata Elxsi, L&T Tech, KEI Industries, Ircon International, Bajaj Holdings and Bajaj Finserv.

A bearish crossover on the MACD on these counters indicated that they have just begun their downward journey.

Most active stocks in value terms
RIL (Rs 1,268 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs 1,093 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 987 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 911 crore), Bajaj Finance (Rs 684 crore), and Divis Labs (Rs 648 crore) were among the most active stocks on NSE in value terms. Higher activity on a counter in value terms can help identify the counters with the highest trading turnovers in the day.

Most active stocks in volume terms
Tata Steel (Shares traded: 5.6 crore), ONGC (Shares traded: 2.3 crore), NTPC (Shares traded: 2.1 crore), Bharti Airtel (Shares traded: 1.5 crore), Tata Motors (Shares traded: 1.2 crore) and SBI (Shares traded: 1.2 crore) were among the most traded stocks in the session on NSE.

Stocks showing buying interest
Shares of ABB India, Asahi Ind Glass, Jyothy Labs, Uflex, Thermax, Federal Bank and Adani Transmission witnessed strong buying interest from market participants as they scaled their fresh 52-week highs, signalling bullish sentiment.

Stocks seeing selling pressure
Shares of Sanofi India were among those that witnessed strong selling pressure and hit their 52-week lows, signalling bearish sentiment on the counters.

Sentiment meter favours bulls
Overall, market breadth favoured winners as 2,053 stocks ended in the green, while 1,349 names settled with cuts.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)