Indian benchmark indices ended marginally lower in yet another volatile session on March 28, with the Sensex down 40.14 points or 0.07 percent to end at 57,613.72, and the Nifty down 34 points or 0.20 percent at 16,951.70.
After a decent start, the market failed to hold on to the gains and gyrated between gains and losses in the lacklustre session amid selling seen across the sectors.
"Indian markets continued to stay in the grip of bears as investors remained cautious in expectation of further tightening from the RBI. While global market sentiment has been improving as the fears of broader contagion from the banking turmoil fade, back home, Nifty small and midcap stocks continued to underperform due to fall in investors risk appetite and FY23 tax harvesting," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
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Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors and Hero MotoCorp were among the top Nifty losers, while gainers included IndusInd Bank, UPL, Power Grid Corporation, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and HDFC Bank.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty auto index declined 1 percent, information technology 0.88 percent, infra and metal 0.7 percent each, while infra and energy down 0.5 percent each. However, some buying is seen in the banking names.
The BSE midcap index declined 0.4 percent and the smallcap index fell 0.8 percent.
On the BSE, except metal and bank, all other sectoral indices ended in the red with power, realty and oil and gas down 1 percent each, while auto, capital goods and information technology down 0.8 percent each.
On March 28, more than 700 stocks touched their 52-week lows, including Sunteck Realty, Centrum Capital, Quess Corp, V-Mart Retail, Aditya Birla Fashion, ACC, Sobha, Godrej Properties, Pritish Nandy Communications, Godrej Industries, Hindustan Oil Exploration, Den Networks, Rushil Decor, Vaibhav Global, TV Today Network, Alembic, Thyrocare Technologies, Aban Offshore.
Among individual stocks, a volume spike of more than 300 percent was seen in Indiabulls Housing Finance and Hindustan Aeronautics.
A short build-up was seen in Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Bandhan Bank, while a long build-up was seen in Torrent Power, Manappuram Finance and Glenmark Pharma.
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Outlook for March 29
Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities
Amid volatile moves in intra-day trades, key indices ended marginally lower and under-performed most of their Asian peers. Barring gains in select banking and metal stocks, other sectors witnessed profit-taking as caution prevailed ahead of the F&O expiry on Wednesday.
Technically, for the last three days, the Nifty is taking support near 16,900 and resistance near the 17,100 level.
For the index, 16,900 would act as a key support level and on a further uptick, it could retest the level of 17,050-17,100. On the flip side, a fresh sell-off is possible only after the dismissal of 16,900 and below the same, the index could slip to 16,820- 16,800.
Jatin Gedia, Technical Research Analyst, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas
The Nifty witnessed yet another day of rangebound price action. It consolidated between 16,900 and 17,100 for the third consecutive day. On the hourly charts, the Nifty is trading between 16,910 and 16,970 where the 61.82 percent and 78.6 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the previous rise from 16,828 – 17,207 are placed.
We believe that it is a make-or-break zone and if at all the pullback rally has to resume it is likely to be from hereon. The daily and the hourly momentum indicators have a positive crossover which is a buy signal. Thus, both price and momentum indicators suggest positive price action over the next few trading sessions.
On the upside, initial targets are placed at 17,200 and above that, it can extend higher to 17,450–17,500. The crucial support zone is placed at 16,910 – 16,870.
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