Nifty may reach first support of 5,425. Downtrend may reverse if the market closes above the previous day’s high

The market witnessed a flip-flop session and settled in the negative as weak cues from Europe induced ferocious late hour selling when the Sensex tanked over 100 points within a few minutes. We had mentioned in our market report on 15th February that the parabolic rise would soon meet with a decline. The Nifty made a lower high and lower low today and closed below 5,505, indicating that selling may increase further. From here we may see the index touching its first support at 5,425. However, a close above any previous day may result in some reversal of the downtrend. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a volume of 122.64 crore shares.  

The market witnessed a flat opening on rising oil prices and worries that the lacklustre growth in Eurozone may lead to another recession. Weak cues from Asia also dampened sentiments here. The Nifty opened 15 points down at 5,490 and the Sensex resumed trade at 18,127, a cut of 18 points from its previous close.

Volatility, usually seen on the futures and options expiry day, persisted since the opening bell and kept the indices on both sides of the neutral line in early trade. However, selling pressure increased at around 10am which pushed the market into the negative terrain.

Profit booking in subsequent trade saw the benchmarks touching their intraday lows in noon trade. At the lows, the Nifty fell to 5,461 and the Sensex dropped to 18,005.  But bargain hunting at lower levels saw the market staging a recovery in the second half of the day. The indices hit their intraday highs around 2.30pm with the Nifty touching 5,537 and the Sensex rising to 18,250.

However, the market erased all its gains in late trade as the key European markets were weak in early trade. Settling in the negative for the second consecutive day, the Nifty closed at 5,483, down 22 points and the Sensex lost 67 points to settle at 18,079.

Markets in Asia closed mostly lower on fears on another recession in Europe following a European Commission report that stated the 17-nation economy would contract 0.3% this year. This apart, rising oil prices also weighed on investors.

The Hang Seng declined 0.78%; the Jakarta Composite dropped 0.91%; the KLSE Composite fell by 0.25%; the Straits Times tanked 0.91%; the Seoul Composite dropped 1.03% and the Taiwan Weighted lost 0.80%. Bucking the trend, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.25% and the Nikkei 225 gained 0.44%. At the time of writing, the major European markets were trading mixed while the US stock futures were in the positive.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of stocks totalling Rs829.63 crore on Wednesday whereas domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities amounting to Rs1,332.90 crore.