Market remains positive

Mumbai, Apr 12: The benchmark indices witnessed buying on Wednesday as Sensex was up by 355 points. The media, PSU bank and FMCG sectors gained over 1 per cent each, while select pharma stocks saw profit booking.

“From a technical perspective, the market remained positive throughout the day after a gap-up opening,” says Shrikant Chouhan, Head Equity Research, Kotak Securities.

For trend-following traders 74,200 can be considered as a trend-deciding level. As long as the market is not trading below the level of 22500, the upside will remain intact.

However, until the markets cross 22800, they would remain in a trading range. For the Bank, support exists at 48650 and 48500 levels.

It is advisable to buy if it forms a reversal formation after hitting these levels. On the higher side, 49000 and 49200 would be immediate hurdles.

“In Wednesday's trading session, Noteworthy was Sensex's triumph, surpassing the historic 75,000 milestone.However, market sentiments were shaken by the US CPI inflation data, questioning the Fed's rate-cut plans and prompting a bearish outlook on potential rate cuts for 2024,” says Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd.

Despite this, hopes for robust Q4 corporate earnings and a pre-election rally remain positive catalysts, as reflected in net buying by both FIIs and DIIs.

With India VIX favouring the bulls, strategic trades suggest buying opportunities for bullish sentiments for stocks like APOLLO HOSPITALS, EICHER MOTORS, INDIGO, and BANK OF BARODA.

Among these, APOLLO HOSPITALS stands out for its momentum play, offering potential targets of 6615/6721, with aggressive targets at 6875, under an intermonth strategy.

The hotter-than-expected US inflation has spiked the US bond yields. This is negative for FPI inflows but is unlikely to impact the Indian market which is resilient, and the rally is driven mainly by domestic liquidity.

“Dips are likely to get bought imparting strength to the market. Therefore, investors may use the dips to buy high quality large caps where the margin of safety is high,” says Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services

From the global equity market perspective sticky US inflation is a negative since it has reduced hopes of three rate cuts by the US.

But it is important to note that there is a real positive factor in the sticky inflation, and that is the exceptionally strong US economy which is showing no signs of a slowdown, leave alone recession.

This resilience of the US economy will support earnings growth and, therefore, the US stock market. This favourable backdrop will be positive for other markets including India.