Nifty fails to hold 1-year high, spikes 4% in February series
The market rallied to fresh 52-week high intraday on Nifty but failed to hold on to that rally amid volatility Thursday on expiry of February futures & options contracts. Profit booking in Reliance Industries and banks caused volatility in late trade but equity benchmarks managed to continue uptrend for sixth consecutive session on support from technology stocks and rupee appreciation.
The 30-share BSE Sensex reclaimed 29000 level intraday, before closing up 28.26 points at 28892.97. The 50-share NSE Nifty settled the trade with 12.60 points gains at 8939.50 after hitting a fresh 52-week high of 8982.15 during the day.
The market retained uptrend for fifth consecutive week, up over a percent while in February series, benchmark indices surged 4 percent and Midcap gained 5 percent.
Experts say they expect the liquidity to continue to support the market in March series that may help it to touch new high.
“Considering the base formation we have seen after February series run up, on the higher side, the market can go up to 9200 level, though more consolidation is possible during that period,” Amit Gupta of ICICIdirect says.
He thinks 8800 will remain a very important support for March series.
Dipen Sheth of HDFC Securities says there is a need to be cautious of the current momentum in the stock market as it seems to be running ahead of reality “but it could continue to run some more”. “This does not mean there is any threat to the Indian macro story.”
Abhay Laijawala of Deutsche Bank believes midcaps should attract a disproportionate amount of funds from domestic & institutional investors and should continue to outperform large cap indices.
The broader markets also traded in line with benchmarks but the market breadth was negative as about 1518 shares declined against 1233 declining shares on the BSE.
The market will remain shut on Friday for Mahashivratri holiday.
Meanwhile, the rupee ended at 66.82, the highest level against dollar since November 10, up 15 paise from previous close.
Nifty Bank reclaimed 21000 level intraday but closed flat due to selling pressure in last hour of trade. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India were down 0.3-0.5 percent. Housing finance company HDFC was down 0.7 percent.
Reliance Industries was biggest loser among Sensex stocks, down 2 percent on profit booking after its 11 percent rally in previous session.
Telecom stocks were in action today. Bharti Airtel closed off day’s high, up 1.4 percent after hitting a 52-week high of Rs 400.65 (up 11 percent) intraday. The company has acquired Telenor India that gives it additional spectrum in 1,800 MHz band.
Idea Cellular jumped over 6 percent after a media report indicated that Japanese fund SoftBank is likely to pick up some stake in proposed merged entity but the fund denied stake buy. The stock surged more than 60 percent year-to-date. The rally also spilled over to Reliance Communications that gained 3 percent.
Technology stocks outperformed among Sensex stocks. TCS shares rallied 3 percent followed by Infosys (up 1.7 percent) and Wipro (up 2.5 percent).
