In a highly volatile week, the Indian benchmark indices lost 1 percent each and also broke the five-week gaining streak, amid mixed global cues, rising dollar, and crude oil prices. Buying by foreign investors, however, provided some support on the downside. For the week, the BSE Sensex fell 812.28 points (1.32%) to end at 58,833.87, while the Nifty50 was down by 199.55 points (1.12 percent) to closed at 17558.9 levels. However, this month till now, the Sensex and Nifty advanced over 2% each.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty Information Technology index was down by 4.5 percent, Nifty Pharma declined 1.7 percent, and the Nifty Healthcare index fell 1 percent. On the other hand, the Nifty PSU Bank index added 4.4 percent. In the last week, the Smallcap index gained nearly 1 percent, the Midcap index increased by 0.6, and the large-cap index fell 1 percent.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought Rs 450.36 crore of equities, while Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs.503.32 crore in the last week. So far in August, the FIIs bought shares worth Rs.18,420.9 crore, and DIIs sold equities worth Rs.6,555.99 crore.
The Nifty has now closed literally around the mid-point of the immediate trading range of 17,750 – 17,350 levels and since markets have lost their sheen, it would be difficult to predict the immediate path of action amid some global worries, said, Sameet Chavan, Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel One.
In our sense, one should avoid trading aggressively within the range and till the time, we remain above 17,350, there is no reason to worry for. Only a breakdown below this safe support would extend the corrective phase towards the major support zone of 17,100 – 17,000. Before 17,350, we can see immediate support around 17,450, he added.
