Where is share market headed after Nifty closes below 18540, Bank Nifty below 44130; check support, resistance Benchmark indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex ended Wednesday’s session in the red. The NSE Nifty 50 fell 99.45 points or 0.53% to 18,534.40 and BSE Sensex plunged 346.89 points or 0.55% to 62,622.24. In sectoral indices, Bank Nifty tanked 308.20 points or 0.69% to 44,128.15, Nifty Metal plunged 46.50 points or 0.78% to 5,890.05 and Nifty Oil & Gas tumbled 94.75 points or 1.26% to 7,432.15 while Nifty Pharma rose 73.70 points or 0.58% to 12,678.40 and Nifty Realty jumped 3.60 points or 0.76% to 478.80. The top gainers on Nifty 50 were Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Kotak Bank, SBI Life and Sun Pharma while the losers were ONGC, NTPC, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and HDFC. “As indicated by multiple economic data points, the Indian economy is presently experiencing a robust recovery, leading to an upward trend in domestic equity markets. However, the rally is being hindered at times due to negative signals from global peers, as observed today. Concerns about a recession and potential interest rate hikes in Western markets are impacting the domestic market but it is nevertheless maintaining the outperformance,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services. “Bank Nifty index experienced selling pressure from bears during the first half of the trading session. However, buying activity was witnessed in the last hour of trading, driven by MSCI index rebalancing. The index has support at 43500, indicating a level where buyers have shown interest and the potential for a bounce-back. On the other hand, resistance is seen at 44500, which is a significant level where both put and call writing is visible. This suggests that there may be a considerable number of traders with bearish and bullish expectations around this price level,” said Kunal Shah, Senior Technical & Derivative Analyst at LKP Securities.
However, he believes that the impact on the Indian market is going to be temporary since there could be some short-term impact on flows into Indian equity markets. But since the Indian economy is on a strong wicket and will continue to remain resilient.
“Improved fiscal situation, controlled current deficit, stable interest scenario combined with good corporate earnings should lead to limited impact on the Indian bond market and equity market too,” he added.
The midcap and smallcap indices took a bigger knock with the BSE MidCap fell 2.51%, while BSE SmallCap index dived 4.18%. According to Amnish Aggarwal, head, research, Prabhudas Lilladher, the valuations were already high and some correction was expected. “If the situation sustains as it is then further correction can’t be ruled out,” Aggarwal said.
Telecommunication and industrials indices were the top laggards with BSE Telecommunication declining 3.82%, followed by BSE Industrials falling 3.26%. JSW Steel (-2.99%), Tata Steel (-2.52%) and Tata Consultancy Services (-2.44%) were the top losers of Sensex.
Surprisingly, both foreign portfolio investors and domestic institutional investors were net buyers today. While, FPIs net bought shares worth Rs 252.25 crore, DIIs have purchased shares worth Rs 1,111.84 crore, as per provisional data from exchanges.
Calling this a “normal phenomena” Pankaj Pandey, head, research, ICICI Direct said, “I will not really give too much weight to a single day buying figure. Amid concerns of elevated interest rate and geopolitical tensions, in a typical market cycle, 8-10% correction is possible at any point in time.”
The brunt of geopolitical conflict, elevated interest rates and rising crude oil prices was also felt by other Asian- Pacific markets. Jakarta Composite Index lost 1.57% followed by Shanghai Composite Index and PSEi, which fell 1.47% and 0.89%, respectively. Nikkei and KOSPI declined 0.83% and 0.76%.