Nifty, Sensex gain marginally in a volatile session; Auto, FMCG stocks hold firm
Benchmark indices Nifty and Sensex settled marginally higher in a rather choppy trading session on the bourses on June 24. During today's trade, the two indices fell as much as half a percent and quickly recovered during noon to trade in the green.
At close, the Sensex was up 0.17 percent at 77,341 and the Nifty was up 0.16 percent at 23,537. About 1,796 shares advanced, 1,692 shares declined, and 134 shares remained unchanged.
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The broader market, which includes midcaps and smallcaps, outperformed the headline indices and closed 0.3 and 0.2 percent higher, respectively.
"By and large the market is getting into a consolidation phase at this point of time and we expect the Nifty to be in the range of 22,000 to 23,500," Kranthi Bathini, director of equity research at WealthMills Securities, told Moneycontrol. He added that there is a tug-of-war going between the bulls and the bears at this point but suggested that this is a buy-on-dips market.
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Of the 13 sectoral indices, auto and FMCG were trading higher with the most gains, rising by 0.8 and 0.7 percent, respectively. Among auto stocks, M&M, Bajaj Auto, and Hero MotoCorp led the rally. FMCG majors ITC and Nestle India were the biggest gainers.
"The sectoral churn happening in the market might accelerate since profit booking is happening in some overvalued sectors and money is flowing into fairly valued large-caps," VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said. He cited the rupee turning stable with a positive upward bias and the inclusion of India in the Global Bond EM Index later this month as triggers for more FII inflows into equity, going forward.
"The bulls may be reaching their limit and could be waiting for an external trigger to continue their momentum. As the Nifty index ventures into uncharted territory, it becomes challenging to identify the intermediate resistance but 23,650-23,700 seem to pose a significant challenge," Sameet Chawan, technical and derivative research head at Angel One said. "From here, if we do not witness any aberrations from the global peers, we might witness consolidation to continue," he added.
M&M, Shriram Finance, Power Grid Corp, Grasim Industries, and Sun Pharma were the top gainers on the NSE Nifty. IndusInd, Cipla, Adani Ports, Coal India, and Tata Steel were the major laggards.
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