Headline indices the Sensex and the Nifty ended flat on July 16 as gains in select heavyweights such as Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel were offset by losses in Infosys, ICICI Bank and HCL Tech.
Both the Sensex and the Nifty hit their fresh record highs of 53,290.81 and 15,962.25, respectively, in intraday trade but succumbed to profit-booking to ended flat with negative bias.
The Sensex closed 19 points, or 0.04 percent, lower at 53,140.06, while the Nifty finished flat at 15,923.40. Mid and smallcaps outperformed the frontline stocks. The BSE midcap and samallcap indices closed 0.45 percent and 0.38 percent higher.
Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, Tata Steel, Power Grid, Reliance Industries and ITC were the top Sensex gainers. HCL Tech, Infosys, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank, NTPC and IndusInd Bank ended were the top laggards in the Sensex kitty of stocks.
Market benchmarks closed the week in the green, as the Sensex rose 1.44 percent and the Nifty 1.5 percent.
“Buying interest was seen in the pharma sector in anticipation of strong Q1 results. The risk of profit-booking is rising due to elevated performance and lack of direction from the western developed markets with flat performance recently. FIIs continue as net sellers in the domestic equity market during the past few days,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
Sectors & stocks
Among the sectors, Nifty pharma, realty and metal indices rose over a percent each, while Nifty IT fell over a percent.
Some 500 stocks, including Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, Abbott India, ACC, Alkem Laboratories, Ambuja Cements, Balkrishna Industries, Cyient, Divi’s Labs, Dixon Technologies, DLF, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals,
Godrej Properties, Indiabulls Real Estate, Mindtree and Wipro, hit their 52-week highs in intraday trade on BSE.
Angel Broking, Bafna Pharmaceuticals, Kanpur Plastipack, Goodluck India, Capital Trust, 5paisa Capital, Parsvnath Developers and Infomedia Press were among those 500-odd stocks that hit their upper circuits in intraday trade on BSE.
Technical view
The Nifty remained in the consolidation mode for the most part of the day. It formed a bearish candle on the daily scale as it closed lower than its opening levels.
Chandan Taparia, Vice President and Derivatives Analyst at Motilal Oswal Financial Services said the index has been forming higher highs-higher lows for the last five sessions.
“It formed a bullish candle on the weekly frame and supports are gradually shifting higher for the next leg of the rally. Now, it has to hold above 15,900 to witness an up move towards 16,000 and 16,200 levels, while on the downside, support exists at 15,800 and 15,750 levels,” he said.
Supports shifted to 15,850-15,800 and holding above these would be important, Rohit Singre, senior technical analyst at LKP Securities said. Any dip around these levels would be buying opportunity with a stop loss below 15,770. Resistance is near 15,960-16,000 zone. A good move is likely above 16,000 Singre said.
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