Narrowness of trade worrying: Udayan

The market witnessed a volatile trading session on Thursday, says CNBC-TV18's managing editor Udayan Mukherjee. The Nifty moved in a 70-80 point trading range, closing finally around the 5,590 mark, up about 30-odd points. The worrying aspect was the narrowness of trade.  The breadth was not good at all, and the market saw almost the same number of advancing to declining stocks.

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Though there was patchy performance from the broader market, strength in a few IT and banking stocks got the Nifty to close in the green. But the Nifty is still very precariously poised, as it enters the earnings season.
In what was to be a volatile trading session, the Nifty started strong on Thursday morning, almost a mini gap up on very strong global cues. At one point, it actually drifted into the red around 5,500. From 5,550, it progressed to 5,620 before giving up a little bit towards the last half an hour of trade.
So, it was slightly volatile in a 70-80 point trading range but closing finally around the 5,590 mark, up about 30 odd points. It wasn’t a bad day, though you got the feeling at the end of the session that it could have been a bit better.
Individual performances were quite strong. Some of the beaten-down banks stocks like ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank came back strong during the day. Infosys was very strong going into results on Friday morning, HCL Technologies was good as well and then there were those stars - DLF and Tata Motors, which did very well particularly. Larsen and Toubro (L&T) also had a good day.
The Nifty actually would have closed above 5,600 had it not been for two heavyweights - Bharti Airtel because of all the news which is coming in from the courts and HDFC had a bad day. Other large cap names like National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Reliance Industries and Tata Steel did not have very good sessions either.
The worrying aspect on Thursday was the narrowness of trade.  The breadth was not good at all we had almost the same number of advancing to declining names. In fact, the midcap index actually closed in the red and there were many losers like Dish TV, Shree Renuka Sugars, particularly Everonn Education where there was a downgrade of its ratings by Credit Analysis and Research Ltd. (CARE).
Delta Corp had an off day, Jet Airways did badly. However, there were a few winners like Aurobindo Pharma, Reliance Communications for the second day running, Jain Irrigation, Lupin and Yes Bank. These stocks did quite well. So, patchy performance from the broader market but strength in a few IT and banking stocks which got the Nifty to close in the green. But it is still very precariously poised as it enters earnings season.