Markets open higher; Nifty moves above 6,800

MUMBAI: The S&P BSE Sensex opened on a positive note for second straight session aided by supportive cues from Asian peers. All the sectoral indices were in the green with banks, metals, power and capital goods in the lead.

The trade is likely to remain rangebound with positive bias in the truncated week. The stock exchanges have announced a trading holiday on April 24, on account of voting for the general elections in constituencies in Mumbai. As a result, the F&O expiry will be advanced to Wednesday.

“Volatility is a given and with indices perched at higher levels indices could swing either way in the near term.

The election developments will be closely tracked especially in terms of the turnout at various constituencies. The first five phases of polling are over but 311 out of 534 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to poll between April 24 and May 12,” said IIFL report.

At 09:20 a.m., the 30-share index was at 22,715.82, up 86.98 points or 0.38 per cent. It touched a high of 22,726.86 and a low of 22,636.75 in trade today.

The Nifty was at 6,802.55, up 23.15 points or 0.34 per cent. It touched a high of 6,805.50 and a low of 6,787.90 in trade today.

“At this juncture, we are observing that the Nifty has precisely bounced towards the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level of the fall seen from 6819 (the intraday swing high) to 6665.15 (the intraday swing low). In addition, the weekly chart exhibits a ‘Hanging Man’ Japanese candlestick pattern. An occurrence of such pattern near the resistance level does not bode well for the bulls,” said Angel Broking note.

“Going forward, considering the negative placement of the weekly ‘Stochastic’ momentum oscillator, if we observe any reversal sign near 6780 – 6760 level then the Nifty may retest 6700 – 6650 levels. In case of excessive selling pressure, the correction may get extended towards 6574 level, which however would not harm the higher degree trend, which is bullish. On the flipside, 6820 – 6850 remains to be a strong resistance zone for the Nifty,” the report added.

The S&P BSE Midcap Index was up 0.73 per cent and the S&P BSE Smallcap Index gained 1.05 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, the S&P BSE Bankex rallied 1.01 per cent, the S&P BSE Power Index advanced 0.75 per cent and the S&P BSE Metal Index gained 0.90 per cent.

Sesa Sterlite (up 1.19 per cent), BHEL (up 1.16 per cent), Axis Bank (up 1.05 per cent), Bharti Airtel (up 0.98 per cent) and RIL (up 0.96 per cent) were among the major Sensex gainers.

Wipro (4.20 per cent), Tata Motors (0.85 per cent), Tata Power (0.36 per cent), HUL (0.25 per cent) and Cipla (0.11 per cent) were among the index losers.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE with 947 gainers against 302 losers.

The foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 433.4 crore while domestic institutional investors were net sellers worth Rs 122.75 crore on Thursday as per the provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.

The Asian markets began the week on a mixed note. The Nikkei 225 was 0.51 per cent higher and the Strait Times was up 0.11 per cent. The Shanghai Composite moved 0.27 per cent lower and Seoul Composite declined 0.47 per cent.