Nifty facing resistance above 8,100; demonetisation weighs

Benchmark share indices continued to trade flat in late trades as profit booking at higher levels capped further upsides.

At 2:30pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 20 down points at 26,279, while the broader Nifty50 was down 12 points at 8,099.

Tata Motors continued to remain as the top gainer up nearly 4% followed by FMCG major ITC.

Pharma and bank shares were among the top gainers while IT shares witnessed profit taking after gains in the previous sessions.

Lupin was up over 1% after the company received USFDA approval to market hydrocodone bitartrate and acetaminophen tablets in the US.
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(Updated at 1:48pm)
The market was trading flat in trade on Thursday tracking muted trend seen in Asian markets, while back home investors remained uncertain about the long-term impact of the demonetisation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. 

 

At 1:48 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 26,214, down 85 points, while the broader Nifty50 was quoting 8,081, down 31 points.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap was up 21 points, while S&P BSE SmallCap was down 4 points. 

"Going forward, 8,080-8,000 are seen as immediate support levels; whereas a possibility of a bounce towards 8,220-8,300 cannot be ruled out. Traders can use these

dips to create a contradictory buy call by placing a strict stop loss below the 8,000 mark," said Angel Broking in a technical note.

Development on demonetisation

Market continued to weigh the impact of demonetisation in various sectors as the debate on the same went on in the Parliament. The government today announced some new measures to ease the cash crunch caused by the move, including allowing farmers to draw money from banks against loans sanctioned to them.

Overall, the general market sentiment is down as investors remain wary and we can see some discretionary spending taking place due to demonetisation," told Saurabh Jain, assistant vice-president of research at SMC Global Securities to Reuters.

"A lot of mixed reaction can be expected from sector-based stocks as we get a clearer picture on who would gain from this (withdrawal of bank notes) move and who would be impacted. While gains on the indexes right now will be short term, one can expect selling to resume soon," he added.

Buzzing stocks

Engineering company Bharat Heavy Electricals rose as much as 3% after HSBC Global Research raised its rating on the stock to "buy" from "reduce".

The NSE bank index rose as much as 1.15% after falling for two straight sessions. Axis Bank gained 1.7% while State Bank of India climbed 1.2%.

Among the losers, some auto and two-wheeler makers, which are expected to see reduced demand for their products because of the banknote measures, fell with Hero MotoCorp declining 1.4%.

Meanwhile, HCL Technologies fell as much as 2.4% after rising in the last two sessions. Wipro declined as much as 2.45%. The fall came after Nasscom revised IT sector’s growth forecast downwards to 8-10% for this fiscal year.

Global markets

US Treasury yields eased on Thursday as a week-long surge that followed Donald Trump's shock election win subsided further, dragging the dollar off a 13-1/2 year peak set overnight and nudging Asian stocks a touch higher.

Spreadbetters saw the modest bounce for equities continuing in Europe, forecasting a slightly higher open for Britain's FTSE, Germany's DAX and France's CAC.

Japanese government bond yields also fell back from multi-month highs after the Bank of Japan conducted a special fixed-rate bond buying operation for the first time, firing a warning shot against excessive yield moves.

Japan's Nikkei and China's Shanghai Composite index settled the day flat, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index bucked the trend to trade 100 points lower.