Nifty, Sensex may trade range-bound; 5 things to know before opening bell on Dalal Street today

After nearing their all-time highs, Sensex and Nifty ended yesterday’s volatile trading session  flat. S&P BSE Sensex now sits at 44,618 points while the NSE Nifty 50 is at 13,113. “A small negative candle was formed on Wednesday with lower shadow, which signal a formation of hanging man type candle pattern. Normally, a formation of hanging man after a reasonable upmove are considered as a warning signal for reversal of trend post confirmation,” said Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities. He, however, casted doubts on immediate negatives.

Technical analysts say that the near term trend continues to be range bound for Nifty with a slight positive bias until the benchmark index gives up 12,800. However, caution is being advised by analysts as weakness could emerge at highs as stock markets may witness profit booking.

Global market watch: Cues from global peers were mixed on Thursday morning. Stock markets in the United States closed in the red on Wednesday with Dow Jones gaining 0.20% while S&P 500 gained 0.18%. Asia peers were mixed with Shanghai Composite trading in the red but Hang Seng, TOPIX, KOSDAQ all sitting with gains.

Support and resistance: On the charts, Nifty’s upside seems limited to 13250/13350 levels while the base has been shifted to 12980 from 12790 levels, according to Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities. On the other hand, Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director, Choice Broking says that at present level, the support comes at 12800 while upside resistance comes at 13200.

Call and Put option data: Maximum Call Open Interest (OI) is placed at 13,000 strike 27.51 lakh contracts, followed by 19.45 lakh contracts at 13,500 strike. Put OI is maximum at 12,00- strike with 30.4 lakh contracts for the December series. This is followed by 13,000 strike with 27.21 lakh contracts.

FII and DII data: Although, the buying by Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) was less than what they have averaged in the past few  trading sessions, but they were still net buyers of domestic securities worth Rs 357 crore. Domestic Institutional Investors (DII) sold securities worth Rs 1,635 crore.

Bulk and Block deals: Shares of Bharti Infratel saw heightened activity on Wednesday. Edgepoint Global and P 5 Asia Holding Mauritius sold stocks of the firm while Nettle Infrastructure bought shares of Bharti Infratel. Adani Logistics sold over 9 lakh shares of Snowman Logistics. Tata Sons sold over 18 lakh shares of Tata Chemicals.