The stock market opened flat on Thursday, with both the Sensex and Nifty exhibiting minor losses at the beginning of trade.
The Sensex was down 84.98 points at 80,166.96. While the Nifty was trading 15.35 points lower at 24,420.15. On the Nifty, market breadth was slightly negative. Of the total 50 shares, 21 shares advanced, whereas 27 declined and 2 remained unchanged.
Several stocks showed stability in spite of the cautious market sentiments. Trent, HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies, and Hero MotoCorp were the top gainers, while Hindalco, SBI Life, Hindustan Unilever, Britannia, and Tata Consumer Products were the top losers.
Market experts explained the ruling trend. Shriram Subramanian, Founder and MD of InGovern Research Services, said, “Markets have absorbed much of the selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) as domestic institutional investors (DIIs) continue to buy.” He feels some mid and small-cap stocks are at attractive valuations. Subramanian thinks large-cap stocks will also attract investor interest.
On technical indicators, Varun Aggarwal, founder and MD of Profit Idea said, “Average Directional Index- ADX is sloping upwards, which indicates that weakness will continue in this market.” He further added that options data indicate a rangebound movement is expected for today. And tomorrow’s expiry and increased activity around 24,500 levels.
This subdued opening of the stock market reflects caution among investors as a result of weighing current global and domestic factors that dictate trends in the market. Today’s action looks more at the movement of individual stocks, too than the overall trend.
Investors should stay tuned, catching market signals carefully. In mixed trending, the focus would then shift to key economic indicators and corporate earnings in the days to come. As the week wears on, market participants look for directional cues. More so as earnings reports pour in and external factors unfold.
In a word, the stock market opened flat with minor declines. Experts expect the short-term to see range-bound movement and advise investors to focus on stock-specific movement.
ANI
