Indian indices ended flat with positive bias in a rangebound trading on August 23, as investors remained cautious ahead of Fed Chair Powell’s comments at Jackson Hole tonight, which will signal about the timing, size and pace of interest-rate cuts in the US.
At close, the Sensex was up 33.02 points or 0.04 percent at 81,086.21, and the Nifty was up 11.65 points or 0.05 percent at 24,823.15.
For the week, BSE Sensex rose 0.8 percent and Nifty50 rose 1 percent.
Top gainers on the Nifty were Bajaj Auto, Coal India, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma and Bharti Airtel, while losers included Wipro, ONGC, Divis Labs, LTIMindtree and Infosys.
BSE Midcap index was down 0.6 percent, while smallcap index ended flat.
Among sectors, auto index was up 1 percent, while metal, realty, media, PSU Bank and IT down 0.5-2.5 percent.
More than 320 stocks touched 52-week high on the BSE including HUL, Sun Pharma, Balu Forge Industries, SMS Pharma, Minda Corporation, Elin Electronic, Uflex, PCBL, Power Mech, DOMS Industries, Himadri Speciality Chemical, Jindal PolyFilm, TVS Motor, Gillette India, Aurobindo Pharma, Glenmark Pharma, Voltas, Ashok Leyland, Colgate, among others. Click to View Full List
Outlook for August 26
Ajit Mishra – SVP, Research, Religare Broking
It was a quiet trading session for the Nifty, which remained in a narrow range and ended the day almost flat. Market sentiment was cautious, influenced by a global wait-and-see approach ahead of the US Fed Chair's speech at Jackson Hole. Sector-wise, there was a mixed performance; the auto sector saw decent gains, while the realty and IT sectors lagged. Broader indices also stayed range-bound, finishing slightly lower.
On Monday, markets will likely react to global cues following the US Fed speech. We recommend maintaining a positive outlook unless the Nifty decisively breaks below 24,500.
We continue to believe that the banking sector holds the key to the next directional move, as other sectors are engaged in a balancing act. In the meantime, traders should avoid taking aggressive positions and stay stock-specific.
Jatin Gedia – Technical Research Analyst at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas
Nifty opened on a flat note and consolidated during the day to close with gains of ~12 points. On the daily charts we can observe that the Nifty has closed positive for the seventh consecutive trading session. The upmove appears a bit overstretched as it has been rising higher without any meaningful pullback towards the hourly moving averages.
The hourly momentum indicator has a negative crossover along with a negative divergence. Thus, can be an intraday dip and hence caution on longs is advised.
The Nifty is also trading close to the 78.6% retracement mark 24830 which shall restrict further upside. Thus, the overall trend remains sideways, and the range of consolidation is 24200 – 25000.
The Bank Nifty also witnessed rangebound price action and closed marginally in the red. The Bank Nifty can resume its upmove after couple of days of consolidation. On the upside, we expect can now witness a upmove towards 51500 – 51900 from short term perspective. A stoploss of 50400 should be maintained for the long positions.
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